By Mark Clement
When some people think of fire, they often think of cordwood outside the house under a blanket of snow, waiting to be brought in and burned in the hearth or wood stove. But when Bixby Energy Systems thinks heat, it thinks corn.
According to Bixby Energy Systems, their new MaxFire home heating stoves—which use dry-shelled corn as fuel instead of fossil fuels or ethanol—can cut home heating costs by as much as 50 percent. The company states that MaxFire appliances can heat a 3,000 square foot home for about $1.50 a day.
The Bixby MaxFire can also be fueled with wood pellets. Igniting any Bixby MaxFire-appropriate fuel source is as easy as pushing a button, too; no primer fire is required to get started. This is a selling point, especially for customers who want heat without hassle. The stove's internal circuitry ignites the corn or other fuel pellets and allows owners to set the stove to one of eight heat levels. And, unlike wood pellet stoves, the window in the MaxFire stays clean and free from soot build-up so the fire and its glow stays visible.
Standing 33-inches tall, 28-inches wide and 30-inches deep, and aesthetically styled to please most homeowners' design schemes, the 55,000 BTU MaxFire holds more than 100 pounds of corn, allowing round-the-clock operation. Unlike other biomass stoves, after the corn is burned, the patented Burn Pot technology automatically cuts ash residue away every seven to 20 hours, depending on the system settings, and drops it into the stove's ash drawer for easy emptying.
In case you don't have your own farm, getting the corn is easy. It's for sale in bags at home improvement or farm supply stores that may offer delivery services. The fuel itself is easy to load and is tidy compared with cordwood. Store the bags in the basement or under the deck and grab them when needed.
Gearing up for a Bixby stove is a hair on the pricey side at $4,495 to $4,995 retail. While the initial cost may seem high compared to other alternative heat sources, the cost of ownership is low and the payback—according to Bixby—is fast: "The stoves typically pay for themselves in less than four and a half years for homes previously heated by natural gas, in less than three years for homes previously heated by heating oil and in two years for homes previously heated by electricity." That's some serious payback.
For customers looking for clean, green and revolutionary ways to stretch dollars or for homeowners looking for an attractive feature, the MaxFire looks like it offers all of the above. Popcorn not included.
www.BixbyEnergy.com
Mark Clement is a remodeler and author of The Carpenter's Notebook and The Kid's Carpenter's Workbook, Fun Family Projects! Find out more at
www.TheCarpentersNotebook.com.
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