Farmers Use Crops to Heat Homes
CENTRE HALL, Pa. (AP) -- On a cool, still day, there's a subtle scent of popcorn surrounding Ed Leightley's farm.
Something on the stove? Nope. The aroma is coming from the furnace.
Leightly is one of a growing number of farmers who find they can save money by using their crops to heat their homes.
``I just love it,'' said Leightley, a corn farmer who lives in a 100-year-old two-story home without insulation in central Pennsylvania. ``It hasn't varied 2 degrees in here all winter. And there's no way I could get heating oil for the same price I'd get for my corn -- this old house doesn't heat cheap.''
No one knows exactly how many people are burning grain for heat, but rising prices for fossil fuels and falling grain prices have prompted more farmers to switch to grain furnaces, which can burn corn, wheat, barley, rye, sorghum and even soybeans.
Dennis Buffington, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Penn State University, says one bushel of corn -- dried and off the cob -- will generate about as much heat as five gallons of liquid propane, which has long been the fuel of choice in farm country.
While prices vary based on location and dealer, Buffington said corn had a wholesale value of about $2 a bushel in late 2000, while propane cost about $1.30 per gallon. That means farmers could cut their heating costs by more than two-thirds by heating with corn.
And those savings can add up.
Eldon Higgins, who owns a sheet metal shop in Sandusky, Mich., said he saved close to $2,000 in the first month after switching from propane to corn and wheat to heat his shop. Higgins started using his grain furnace in January.
``My last bill for 28 days was $2,126 for propane,'' Higgins said. ``Now we're heating for about $8 per day.''
And, he said, he'll soon start saving even more after agreeing to take some substandard wheat from an area grower. Higgins said he'll get the grain -- three truckloads of it -- for free.
Buffington said that's one of the advantages of grain furnaces: the furnace doesn't know if kernels are too small to be marketable or if the grain is diseased.
``Where this has a real advantage is if the corn has lesser value,'' Buffington said. ``When corn is low-quality or is mildewed or for some other reason is unmarketable, it still burns just as well.''
Most farmers who use grain furnaces burn whatever crop they grow instead of buying grain. The furnaces have been most popular among corn and barley farmers because of the low prices for those crops.
While grain-fired furnaces are starting to catch on in farm country, grain specialist Dan Brann said most urban and suburban customers probably would find the heaters inconvenient.
``Somebody's got to make it where the homeowner does not need to bring in grain -- that the homeowner simply goes down, knocks the ashes out, and everything else operates just like their oil furnace,'' said Brann, who works for Virginia Tech Extension.
On the Net:
Penn State University College of Agricultural Sciences: http://www.cas.psu.edu
