Wood-Burning Grain Dryer Saved $25,000 Last Year

Wood-Burning Grain Dryer Saved $25,000 Last Year GRAIN DRYERS Grain Dryers (29E) 33-5-18 Oliver Place estimates he saved $25,000 last year in corn drying fuel costs by using a wood-burning corn dryer for about half of his 50,000-bu. corn harvest. The Oxford, N.Y., farmer got the idea from a FARM SHOW article, and tweaked the design using parts he had available. The firebox is a 5,000-gal. fuel tank with sand on the floor, topped by flat stone and fieldstone that runs about 1 ft. up the inside walls. A 5 by 6-ft. door makes it easy to throw wood into the roomy 13-ft. long by 8-ft. dia. chamber. Two 8-in. dia. grain auger pipes and an old fan off a hammermill serve as the furnace's heat exchanger. "By having a forced draft at the tail end, it sucks air through the furnace," Place says. He also added a modulator valve to maintain temperature. If the wood fire gets too low, the original propane burner kicks in. Place surrounded the furnace with a 30-ton feed bin he purchased for scrap price. The fuel tank was too heavy to slide into it, so he cut the bin apart to place part of it on the ground, then covered the top and screwed it securely together. The furnace is air tight and puts out 1.5 million btu's, drying about 100 tons of corn a day. "Once you get a good fire going there's hardly any smoke, but it takes three or four hrs. to get it going," Place says. "We burn about two full cords a day," Place says. "During the day we top it off every couple of hours, and we fill it up at night so there is still fire in the morning." Place has access to free firewood from local loggers and roadside tree cutting operations. Plus he has 200 acres of his own woods with dead and down trees. Most of the wood has dried for at least a year, though he can burn green wood when the fire is hot. The wood is dumped right next to the furnace, and he and his crew cut wood into 4-ft. lengths and feed the fire while they are waiting for corn to unload. Place has been pleased with how well the stove works. He plans to add an automatic draft control and expects to eliminate most of his propane usage by using the wood-burning dryer for the whole 2009 harvest. He spent about $500 to build the dryer. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Oliver Place, 203 Wackford Rd., Oxford, N.Y. 13830 (ph 607 843-8521; theplaces@frontiernet.net).

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