Magnum Heat 

The "Buzz" about Pellet Furnaces

Are you hearing more about pellet furnaces? That’s because the term seems to be gaining traction and people are curious. Some people mistake a pellet stove for a pellet furnace. While pellet stoves can put out as much heat as a traditional furnace, they are actually two different appliances.

Others are likely looking for a replacement heating system for their older, more traditional gas guzzling furnace. Whatever the reasons, we’re glad people are searching for information about pellet furnaces. We’ll be happy to answer any of your questions and help you decide what kind of heating solution is right for your home, cabin, workshop or office.

A pellet furnace, like the Magnum 6500 Furnace is a forced-air pellet furnace that burns both corn and wood pellets.  It has been one of our featured products, and with good reason. The Magnum 6500 pellet furnace  is designed with the most “advanced heat exchangers” and “air distribution system” on the market today. We hear from pellet furnace owners all the time that they love the Magnum 6500 for its reliability and durability over the years.

Read more about our featured pellet furnace,  shop online now, or give our heating specialists a call with your questions at 1-800-495-3196.

Yes, Magnum Countryside and Country Flame furnaces, fireplace inserts, and stoves can be connected to a low voltage or millivolt wall thermostat. The control boards are not designed however to work with an electronic thermostat that requires power from the appliance.

When the wall thermostat calls for heat the appliance will go to the heat setting that has been pre-selected. When the wall thermostat has been satisfied (the room is up to temperature), the appliance will go to a pilot fire that is pre-programmed into the appliance. If you have the auto ignition system and are operation on fully automatic, the appliance will shut down completely until the wall thermostat calls for heat and then it will light the unit and run at the pre-set heat setting.

If you are ready to buy, but have some very specific questions for us, we’d love to help you get the answers you need. Call 1-800-495-3196.

Is there really a forced-air furnace that burns corn or wood pellets?

Yes!

The Magnum 6500 is a flex fuel furnace that is an effective and efficient alternative heat source for your home. With a whopping 210 pound fuel storage capacity, the Magnum 6500 furnace will provide up to 97% combustion efficiency.

And How Safe Is a Pellet/ Flex-Fuel Furnace?

The 6500 Stove has many built in features to keep the furnace safe. Features such as: Low and High temp auto shutdown, and proper insulation, so the furnace top and on the three sides are cool to the touch.

We recently heard from a customer on the use of his Magnum 6500 Furnace and its amazing durability.

Dear American Energy Systems,

The years have gone by, and I have had the same results every time so I wanted to share them with your company. I am heating approximately 4500 sq feet of office space and warehouse.

Another heating season is starting, and I am very happy to inform you that I just had another flawless start up of both my heating units. I have an old 6500 furnace along with a baby corn stove. I am an extremely busy person, and maintenance is not one of my strong points. I am scared to confess that the past few years I have neglected to clean them after the heating season ended. In fact, I simply let the corn/wood pellets run out,  the unit turned off, and that’s the way I left them all summer until just today. After a lot of vacuuming with my ash vac, I filled it, started it, and let them take off. These things are unbelievable. So, I simply wanted you to have my thanks for building such a solid unit, that even I can run it.

Ps, I will try to do a better job servicing my units this year. I want them to continuing saving me boat loads of money. One more thing: with natural gas it was costing up to $1000 a month to heat my office area. Now, it takes a pallet of corn which runs around $300 a month. HUGE savings there. Thank you very much for helping me buy my snow mobiles.

Sincerely,

Michael

Furnaces have been around a long, long time. We all have stories of furnaces going out, having to replace a furnace, or moving into a house with an ancient furnace that is far from heat efficient and economical to run.

While corn and flex-fuel stoves have been around for quite sometime, we have yet to experience an average life expectancy for a flex-fuel stove.

You ask the question, “What is the life expectancy of a multi-fuel (flex fuel) stove?”

Well, I don’t really know yet! My MagnuM corn stove has been going for over 27 years and is still operating. There are several hundred thousand appliances in operation today that have been out for 10 plus years and are still going.

The serviceable parts can be replaced and reputable manufacturers like American Energy Systems Inc. have been around for more than 37 years.

It is important to maintain your appliance, have it installed correctly and follow the manufacturers suggestions on how to operate and maintain your unit.

We’ve posted dozens of helpful videos on correct installation and maintainace of your Magnum Countryside or Country Flame heating appliance on YouTube, such as the one featured below.

You should expect a lot of years of toasty evenings without wrapping up in layers of clothes. You can also expect your flex-fuel stove to give your furnace a run for the money both in heat efficiency and longevity!

photo credit: barockschloss

Are you sold on alternative heating and ready to throw your furnace out the window?

Wait.

Even though heating with renewable energy such as corn or wood pellets is a cost effective and fantastic method of heating your home, you don’t want to throw your furnace out the window just yet.

Do I need to keep my furnace if I install a Magnum stove?

The answer is yes you do. There are code compliance issues that require a primary heating system to be installed in your home. Today, there are no insurance or building codes that will allow a solid fuel device to be considered as primary.

This does not mean, however, that your corn/flex-fuel appliance will not heat your entire home.

The best advice is to let your renewable energy appliance do the bulk of the heating, and when you go away on vacation, etc. allow your primary furnace to take over.

There are plenty of design solutions; your corn burning appliance can complement your entire system so that you can stay toasty warm.

Many corn/flex-fuel customers report that their primary furnace runs very little, if at all, even on the coldest of days. So while we do not recommend you throw your furnace out the window, we are excited for you to experience the wonderful heat and savings associated with corn and pellet stoves!

One of our raving fans share how well their corn stove heats their entire home in this video:

photo credit: Keith Williamson

American Energy Systems has a rich history of providing superior corn stoves and flex-fuel heating appliances; including fireplaces and furnaces. We are pleased to offer a blog community to people passionate about using alternative energy to heat their homes and offices.

If you want to shop online and skip directly to our extensive Magnum and Country Flame product lines, please jump over to our Main Website at Magnum Heat. To go directly to our Magnum E-com Store click here.

 Cme2heatitup on Ebay, one of American Energy System’s Resellers, sells overstock, scratch and dent, and  special promotion units for wholesale prices. These are one of a kind items and deals, as Cme2heatitup is the ONLY authorized AES online Reseller that can sell DEMO units for full factory warranty.

If a show room is more your style, and you’d love to see a corn or pellet stove in action, you can find a dealer near you! Just use our Magnum and Country Flame locator!

For a fun, new community of people passionate about heating their homes with alternative energy, you can join our Fan Page on Facebook at Facebook.magnumheat.com Be sure to leave us a comment so we can say “hi”!

We are active on Twitter now too, so follow us at Twitter.com/alternativeheat Be sure to @ reply so we can follow you back! We love the discussions on Twitter going on about green living, saving money, burning corn, and alternative energy for heat. Weigh in!

We are working hard to offer countless videos featuring all our our Magnum and Country Flame products. Dozens of easy to understand and helpful demonstrational videos are posted on Magnum Heat channel of YouTube. From trouble shooting and venting, to choosing your corn or wood pellets to buy, we’re here to help.