Supplies available
From Cornburning
Contents |
Supplies and equipment for your corn burner installation. This page will cover venting, hearth pads, and other things for installing a corn boiler.
Planning your chimney
Chimney Pipe
Vent Pipe Types
Only use Type L vent pipe. It uses an expensive stainless steel liner but it will last. Typical costs are around $35 for 2 foot of type L.
Do not use Type B vent pipe. It will be tempting because it is so much cheaper, around $20 for a four foot section. But, it will only last a season or two before the corn gasses corrode type B pipe and you will be breathing Carbon Monoxide.
Plain stainless steel pipe can be readily corroded by corn soot combined with moisture, as seen in the picture at right, courtesy of TallCorn. For this reason, some corn burners install a short "sacrifice" length of pipe at the end of their vent where the pipe is exposed to rain and a greater risk of condensation. Says Tallcorn: "What did it (the pipe) in was about a month's worth of zero or below temperatures and soot mixed with condensation at the top of the pipe and made a gooey paste of acid that ate the pipe. It ate the upper most end of the pipe that was exposed to the cold. Where the pipe stayed hot enough was OK. "
Corn burners should be vigilent for condensation. It is a sign that the stove is not running hot enough and that vent corrosion is imminent.
Something new on the market, AL29-4C vent pipe is a a superferritic stainless steel designed for extreme resistance to chloride ion pitting, crevice corrosion and stress corrosion cracking, as well as general corrosion in oxidizing. It is an ideal choice for resisting deleterious effects of corrosive condensates created by burning corn.
See the Bixby Venting page for more discussion on vent pipes.
