round hay or straw bale burner

[treetech]

Hi all
I was wondering if anyone has any experence with round bale burners for heating their house? Can they be bought comercially? I live in PEI Canada and straw or hay bales can be bought quite cheaply. Do the bales have to be dry? I presently heat my house with a wood boiler and an oil boiler. I use about ten cord of hardwood per year. Five to seven hundred dollars will buy a lot of straw bales. Also filling the furnace twice a week sounds better than every six hours!!! Any info anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated.

[beenthere]

No experience. I think one would have to determine if moving the volume of straw in any form would be as economical as hauling wood, as pound for pound, they are comparable to BTU output.
Here is an article about straw bale burning.

http://www.pami.ca/pdfs/reports_reasearch_updates/using_straw_as_a_farm_heating_fuel_719.pdf#search='straw%20bale%20burner'

[Frank_Pender]

Here in the Willamette Valley we have the Rye Grass Seed Capital of the World.  I have some farmer friends that are useing Taylor hotwater furnaces and burning compacted straw bales in them, with great success.  I believe they have the larger units that \provide for a 3'  square opening to place two bales per loading.    I am sure they are using dry bales for burning, rather that wet moldy straw bales.

[Patty]

I have a big round hay burner...her name is Becky.  ;D

Sorry, I just couldn't resisit.

[treetech]

Beenthere;
Thanks for the article. I'm going to print it off and have a read.
treetech

[ksu_chainsaw]

Farm Show had an article about a farmer that built his own.  This mag also has lots of build it yourself projects in there

www.farmshow.com

If i didnt have so many old hedge posts sitting around home, I might think about putting one of those burners into the barn.

Charles

[treetech]

beenthere: I read the article. Thanks for the info. For some reason I thought a large hay bale would last for a couple of days, but acording to this article it doesn't seem to be the case. Does anyone have any direct experience with this? I was thinking two bales a week times a twenty week heating season @ 10 to 15 $ per bale= $400.00 to $600.00 per heating season and a lot less work than wood. I like the idea of outdoor wood boilers but we have a lot of snow in my area and rooting through the snow for wood doesn't appeal to me all that much. I can use the loader on the tractor to move bales and also to move snow. I guess there really is no free lunch!!
Patty; Perhaps I could feed the hay to Becky and use her body heat as a radiator!! ;D
Frank_Pender; I would love some more info on those furnaces that they are using out your way. I will try a web search for taylor.  
Thanks everyone!!

[Frank_Pender]

They furnace ZI am speaking about is the Taylor Howater Furnace.   They have a number of different box sizes available.  The two I use have fireboxes that are 2' x 2' x 3' deep.  

[WH_Conley]

I read the article on the straw burners and have a question or two. The study was on cereal straw, did not mention hay. The reason I noticed this was cereal grains do not do extra well here and we have no market, but grass hay does extra well and is cheap enough that I couldn't even give it away this time, had to cut it and let it go. Has anyone seen anything about grass hay, or would it be too dense to draft properly?

[treetech]

Frank_pender;
Do you have any idea how long of a burn they get with the bales?

[duke401]

i would like to know how long a large bale would last also
duke

[Corley5]

I've been burning a few 65lb square bales of hay in my Crown Royal outdoor furnace and the results are good.  A bale will last about 8hrs with temps in the mid twenties heating my house which is 1,200 sq.ft and domestic hot water.  The smoke is however less than pleasant especially when the bale is first put in.  I've heard that the best stuff is flax straw.  It burns longer with more heat and less ash.

[Frank_Pender]

Treetech, sorry about the delay in getting back to you.  I did find were they are making the compacted bales.  What they are actually doing is comptacting these ryegrass straw bales and then sending them to Asian markets for livestock feed.  they then inject the bales with nutrients for both beef and dairy cattle.

      I will try and do better at getting out there and acquiring a few of the bales and trying them out myself.  Please be patient with me in getting this accomplished.  Most of the time my plate is so full I can't find the plate.

[treetech]

Frank
Thanks for the info Frank! Don't you go making any special trips or putting extra pressure on yourself to get more information in a hurry. This project of mine is long term and at the present time I am just trying to gather up information on many different heating systems to see which one will suit me best. It seems the choices are endless. Whatever system I chose will be expensive so it had better be a good one. I appreciate your imput and also the imput of everyone else on this forum. Thanks
Walter

[Frank_Pender]

That is ok, Walter, I have been wanting to do this for quite some time.  I called the fella last night that is leasing the buildings and facilities to the folks that are making the bales.  The building owner is the father of two of my x students and the renters are cousins of some oof my students.  All in my family of kids, ya.  Anyway, I fond out last night that they make the bales to the size of 16" x 24" x 21" and then slice then in half for shipment to Japan and off shore China.  There seems to often be a lage number that do not meet specks becasue of to much dirt or other materials that the straw, getting tied into the bale.  So, my intent is to see how much of the falldown is available for free. ;D