With diminishing home values, every purchase for the home has to count. With green energy on everyone’s mind purchasing a corn burning appliance for your home makes great dollars and sense.

While you are enjoying a 60 plus return on your investment every year in heating costs you are increasing the value of your home. A typical increase in value would be $3500.00. Added to this value is the fact that your home will be more attractive to a home buyer that is energy conscience and wants more money put in his or her pocket to make house payments.

If the time comes to sell your home, you may want to consider using a real estate agent who sees the value in alternative heating or is sensitive to green homes. As time goes on, I think we’ll see realtor and home buyers paying more attention to the energy efficient benefits each potential home offers.

Have you heard of American Energy Systems, the name behind the Magnum Countryside and Country Flame products?

If you’ve ever wondered about the history of corn stove and flex-fuel burning appliances, then welcome to American Energy Systems, or AES as some of our fans like to call us.

A Kernel of History: The Corn Stove

American Energy Systems Inc. of Hutchinson, Minnesota, is regarded in the industry as the leading designer and expert in the corn burning field.

I’m Mike Haefner, the president and founder of American Energy Systems Inc., and I designed and built the first certified corn burning appliance in the industry. I am a contributing author to the NFI training and installation manual on pellet and corn appliances and have conducted numerous training seminars on proper installation and operation of corn burning appliances.

Is there a topic you’d like to see addressed or a question you’d like answered here on our blog? Please post your comment. You can also join me on Facebook and Twitter to talk more about the exciting news in the alternative energy field.

photo credit: The-Lane-Team

Help! My stove is blowing up in my face, what causes that?

Signed, Singed and Smoking

With the design of the combustion system in a MagnuM stove, it is nearly impossible for the appliance to puff back, flare up and out the door, or “blow up in your face”.  If you are experiencing this with your stove, here is some information that will be sure to help.

Happening When You Light the Stove?

If this is happening when you light the stove then it is the starter fluid that you are using. Do not use gas, charcoal lighter or any other highly flammable liquid to start your stove. Only use approved starter for your appliance. This can be purchased at any good retail specialty shop.

If the fire is already lit do not add any fire starter. This is sure to give you a surprise. Fire starter gel is not intended to add to the fire once it is lit and burning.

Happening When You Open the Door?

If the appliance puffs out the door when opened or the fire flares up when you open the door then the appliance is either installed incorrectly, you have negative pressure in the home, or the unit is plugged and needs servicing. In all of these cases it is important that you follow the manufacturer’s recommended daily, weekly and monthly maintenance guidelines and consult with a trained service tech to get your stove back in perfect operating condition.

We have a GREAT online resource for technical questions on our forum, which you can visit and find expert help.

To access the manual for your heating appliance, you can visit our Technical Documents and Owner’s Manual section of our website.

photo credit: quinn.anya

Many people who own corn stoves or who are considering buying a corn stove ask this question:

Can I buy corn directly, in bulk, from a farmer?

Farming is the backbone of America, and many people view buying corn directly from farmers as a way to support the industry, spend money locally, and save money by buying fuel in bulk.

The answer is yes, you can buy corn directly from farmers to fuel your corn stove. Farmers are a great source for getting corn directly. Many farmers have turned this opportunity into a business and sell corn and appliances.

I have not met a farmer yet who does not like to have someone stop by for a visit. Be prepared though for about two hours of great stories, hot cider, and oh yes, taller stories.

photo credit: Martin Pettitt

photo credit: Waypoint-zero

One of the most talked about questions in the alternative energy and renewable heating fields is:

“How much can I expect to save if I switch to an alternative heat source like a corn or pellet stove?”

Everyone’s story will be different but you can expect to save 60% or more on your heating expenses. I look at it two different ways.

1. If I took a couple thousand dollars and invested it in savings I would make maybe 3-5 percent on my money.
2. If I take that same money and invest in a corn stove or furnace I will get a 40-60 percent return on my money every year.

The frosting on the cake is that while saving money my home will be warmer than when my primary unit was heating my home, and I get the added benefit of the ROMANCE that a fire creates. We have story after story about how the corn stove became the focal point of the home bringing families together.

Do you have a story to share about your corn stove? We’d love to hear from you.

photo credit: Casey Serin photo

photo credit: norwichnuts

Frugal living at our home?

Absolutely!

We live frugally at our house, or at least, we try to. I love finding a good deal, shopping the sales rack, saving money, and having a coupon when I go out to eat. It is very, very seldom that I pay full price for anything.

We have a sun-room addition on our home that is our “family room” and pretty much the hub of our house. We added a Magnum Baby Countryside stove to the corner a few years and just love it. It helps to extremely reduce our heating bill.

How a Corn Stove Figures in to Our Frugal Mix

We purchase corn in the fall from a local farmer that is dried to the optimum level for our stove. He pulls the gravity box into our driveway late each fall, and we use a 5 gallon bucket, wheelbarrow and lots of arm power to put the corn into a hand made wooden box in our garage. This year we briefly used wood pellets in our stove, until our corn arrived. That is the beauty of a flex-fuel stove!

Last year, we spent about $400.00 to purchase enough corn to last us all winter. It even got us through October and November this past year (2009).

Minimum Maintenance

We pretty much run our corn stove day and night, shutting it down every other day to clean it out briefly. Maybe once a week we shut it down for a more thorough clean.

Heat Distribution Through-Out Our Home

We have ceiling fans in the sun-room, adjoining kitchen, and then above our stairway which rotates the warm air and keeps the main level of our home warm. On a really windy, cold day, our furnace might kick-in a tiny bit, otherwise, our corn stove keeps us toasty warm.

Guest Post: The author of this post is Cindy Haugland, a frugal Minnesota Mom who is known by her friends as a tightwad. She started her own business, aptly called TidyTightwads, to help other people save money and live with less clutter and stress. She recommends a Magnum corn stove to those who want to save money on heating costs, as highlighted in this story of another mom’s journey to saving money with a corn stove.

Many people are excited about the prospect of saving money and burning corn for heat, but have questions about how alternative heat and fuel accessibility works for people in larger cities. After all, they don’t necessarily have corn fields in their backyards like many mid-westerners.

So how do you access and/or buy corn if you live in an urban area and want to use a corn stove?

Corn and other Bio-Mass/Agri-Fuels have been distributed world wide for many years. The industry today is providing several alternatives for getting the fuel of choice right to your home or local distribution centers. Bulk delivery, bagged fuel, and personalized service are part of the package when purchasing a corn stove these days.

American Energy Systems was instrumental in putting a corn silo in downtown Tacoma Park, Maryland in full view of the White House to show that fuel can be supplied anywhere people want to conserve energy.

There was a great blog post written a while back in support of corn stoves, alternative energy, the corn silo project in Tacoma Park, and American Energy Systems by Mike Tidwell. You can read his article here, called “Maryland’s First 90% Renewable-Energy Home; The story of how one Takoma Park family is fighting global warming on a budget, and how you can do it too”

Here’s a quick video tutorial in helping you decide if heating with renewable energy is right for you and your home:

You’ve heard the stories from centenarians of living through the depression and other tough economies. Many of those stories revolve around saving money on food and getting by on cheap fuel to heat their homes. So many people tell stories about chopping wood and throwing corn cobs in their stoves to keep warm. With corn fields plentiful and corn cobs considered useless, why don’t flex fuel stoves burn corn cobs?

If you spend a little time on the Internet looking for information about this subject and search for articles about  burning corn, you’ll no doubt find a common question about burning corn cobs. Why is it recommended you burn shelled corn (or other approved fuels) in your flex fuel stove, and why wouldn’t you burn corn cobs?

Here’s the Answer

Corn/flex-fuel appliances today are designed to burn shelled corn instead of corn cobs. Farmers are harvesting their corn now with combines, shelling the corn right away, and chopping up the cobs to be returned to the earth. This is factored into the design. I know this, because I designed and built the first certified corn burning appliance in the industry.

Corn cobs carry a high level of starch in them which does not convert easily over to BTU’s. The shelled corn carries a level of starch and sugar which converts easier into usable heat units. The technology for using corn cobs is so much different from using shelled corn, that appliances can not easily adapt between the two.

Video Help on Choosing Your Corn and Other Flex Fuels

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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.

For specific questions or assistance with one of our appliances, you can participate in our online Magnum Forum -which is getting rave reviews for quick, easy access to all your technical needs. 

 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.