Backup Stove Burns Almost Anything

Backup Stove Burns Almost Anything ENERGY Wood Burners (65) 30-1-2 "I think everyone should have a backup heating system for emergencies," says Joseph Leihgeber, Williamsburg, Ohio, who built a wood-burning stove that also burns coal, corn, used motor oil, cooking oil, stove pellets, wood chips and just about anything else you can feed into it. From the front it looks like a conventional wood stove except for the hopper on the right side and a pair of forced-air fans on the side. The 1-bu. hopper is designed to feed corn, coal and wood pellets to a 2-in. auger that runs into a burn pot inside the stove. Forced air blows up through the pot to aid combustion. On the back of the stove there's a reservoir to hold used motor oil and cooking oil. He uses oil to start wood fires by opening the valve to a 1/4-in. line that runs to the top of the firebox, where it drips onto the logs. Once the fire is burning, he can allow the oil to continue to drip, creating a very hot fire that burns the oil with almost no smoke. Leihgeber has an oil-fired furnace that handles most of his home-heating but he doesn't plan to use it this year. "With the high price of heating oil, I'm going to burn all the free wood, motor oil, corn and anything else I can find," he says, adding that he plans to add a larger hopper for grain and pellets. The stove cost about $300 to build and Leihgeber would be willing to put together plans if there was enough interest. Contact: Joseph Q. Leihgeber, 1815 Bardwell West, Williamsburg, Ohio (ph 937 444-4835; josephql2@aol.com).

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