burning hay for fuel?

[blunosr]

Hi, have any of you thought of burning hay bales for heating? I have loads of hay that just rots in the fields, and I would like to build a "wood" stove, that burns the small square bales, and would heat water for in-floor heating.

Seems to me that would be frugal. I'd save heating costs, and have a way to get rid of excess hay.

There's a family in Missouri who burn big round bales in a stove of their own design. They heat their chicken barns, shops, and their house, and save about 65% off their natural gas bill.

Rural Missouri - JANUARY 2008 - Heating with Hay

Any thoughts? Design ideas?

Thanks,

 

[Sonny580]

If you do go for such idea,--make sure it dont VOID your insurance coverage!---also put the burner 500 feet from the nearest building!---acouple nights ago my buddy burned his house down with this sort of contraption, but he was proud that the lp truck hadnt filled his tank all winter!---NOW he has NO house!---lost everything!---Ins. wont cover because he didnt read the part that states NO aux. heaters! thanks; sonny 580

 

[powerpace]

I have read there are few of these round bale burners in the midwest. All are owner build and connected to the heated areas by heated water transfer.

 

[MasseyWV]

I think the real question should be, why is so much hay being left to rot? Surely it could be sold, even if at heavily discounted prices, and the money used as needed.

 

[Whatswrong]

I think the real question should be, why is so much hay being left to rot? Surely it could be sold, even if at heavily discounted prices, and the money used as needed.

The producer has to try and see how he can get the cost of production or more from his product ,this isn't Wall Mart where you pay a dollar and sell for one cent over cost on a lost leader and make it up some where else.

 

[rambler]

Moisture might be a problem, would need the hay drier for burning than for feeding cows?

As crop prices go up, wonder if you could make enough on the hay to buy wood or whatever for a more conventional fuel.

I think a hay burner would be problematic to make it efficient - the hay is going to be kinda wet, and it is difficult to make it burn efficiently, without being a smouldering mess.

Seems like a lot of work, with a lot of things that need to be just right to make it all work out.

--->Paul

 

[MasseyWV]

The producer has to try and see how he can get the cost of production or more from his product ,this isn't Wall Mart where you pay a dollar and sell for one cent over cost on a lost leader and make it up some where else.

I'm not a farmer so I don't know all the details involved with hay production but I do know about making money. Hay is a product, and when you have a product, regardless of what it is, there is almost always a way to make money from it.

In this case, if production costs (labor, machinery, fuel, time, etc...) are a problem, perhaps there is someone willing to cut it themselves. The point I'm trying to make is that where there is a will, there is usually a way. One just has to find it.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Hi, have any of you thought of burning hay bales for heating? I have loads of hay that just rots in the fields, and I would like to build a "wood" stove, that burns the small square bales, and would heat water for in-floor heating.

Seems to me that would be frugal. I'd save heating costs, and have a way to get rid of excess hay.

There's a family in Missouri who burn big round bales in a stove of their own design. They heat their chicken barns, shops, and their house, and save about 65% off their natural gas bill.

Rural Missouri - JANUARY 2008 - Heating with Hay

Any thoughts? Design ideas?

Thanks,

Strange idea, I have seen the way compressed baled hay burns, slow, smokey and not much heat unless it is a whole stack burning from the inside as a result of spontaneous combustion. I remember when sawdust burning furnaces were common, they fed the sawdust in a slow stream (stoker) with lots of air. Take your hay and run it through a chipper and feed it into a boiler or furnace with some kind of similar stoker arrangement. Ground coal was fed that way also in the past.

 

[powerpace]

In the Willamette Valley a few years back there was research done for co-generation using straw. The grass seed farmer had sanitized their fields after harvest by burning. The Department of Environmental Quality shut down most burning after the city folk complained each year.

I don't believe the co-gen was built. The farmers found a better market for their product. They highly compressed bales of straw are shipped in containers to Japan, Korea and others. They use it for roughage in animal feed. Last I heard it was about 1 billion ton each year.

Oregon has fancier crops, but hay and straw are doing just fine | OregonLive.com

 

[crash325]

Too bad you are so far away. Around here hay is up to around $16 / $18 a bale.

But to me a better idea (And I have seen it done.), get the hay up off the ground, cover it and let it really dry out. Pour a good & wide foundation a make storage sheds or other out buildings out of it. Plaster it on the out side and the buildings will last almost forever. Best insulated buildings you could get.

I sort of wonder why you go to the work and expense of baling it if you can't use it. There must be someone around that could use it. Maybe trade it for something you can use.

Just me

 

[forgeblast]

If you get rfd tv, I am sure praire farm report has shown one that was used for heating.
Farmvideos.com, farm DVDs & videos on shops, cattle handling, inventions, antique tractors, grain handling, & fencing. is the website for the show.

 

[BeezFun]

If you burn it be sure to run the exhaust stack to your upwind neighbor's house so you have the pleasure of smelling what you're burning. Might not be a bad idea to do that with all wood burners, everyone claims their stove burns so clean you can't smell it, so they shouldn't mind breathing it themselves.

 

[rd_macgregor]

A few years back, a colleague of mine toured hay(or straw?)-powered district heating systems in Europe. The slides he showed when he got back were intriguing, but I think the hardware for doing this for a single dwelling would likely be too costly to make it worthwhile, though.

BOB

 

[Depmandog]

The article referred to using bio-mass that had little to no nutritional value as feedstock. Much like oat straw. So no true "hay" is being burned.

As to the person that was complaining about the smoke smell....the article was discussing heat for a poultry operation. I seriously doubt if this producer has many neighbors - chicken farms are pretty stinky. Oh my,the word reeks comes to mind. Having some smoke in the air would be a breath of fresh air in comparison.

 

[AWVFARMBOY]

You have a point with your quote, but, when you produce hay you without having a use for it yourself, it can be quite the burden. If your post of WV is so, we share the same homestate.
I have had problems the last 3 years with hay. I got burned for 1500 bucks year before by someone that wanted the hay but after getting it didnt have the money. Then there are the 500 folks that call you and want 1 roll...or they tell you they want GOOD hay and you quote the price and they agree...then you make good hay and they back out on you....Then there are the ones that want to nickel and dime you to death on your hay or wait till it is colder than a well diggers butt or pouring the rain and the ground is muddier than heck...then want to buy hay.

They cant grasp the thought of 20 grand for a tractor, 5 grand for a good mower, 15 grand for a baler, 5 grand for a rake, and 4 bucks a gallon for diesel, 40 bucks for a twin spool of twine and then...oh...but then..your time to cut, rake, bale the hay....then want to give you 1.50 a square bale or 15.00 for a 4x4 roll of hay...
Selling hay is a pain in the butt if you dont have use of it yourself or have someone that you produce hay for. If you let someone else come on your property to cut hay...then you tend with them getting in your ditches, tearing up your fence, and other pesky nuisances.

I'm not a farmer so I don't know all the details involved with hay production but I do know about making money. Hay is a product, and when you have a product, regardless of what it is, there is almost always a way to make money from it.

In this case, if production costs (labor, machinery, fuel, time, etc...) are a problem, perhaps there is someone willing to cut it themselves. The point I'm trying to make is that where there is a will, there is usually a way. One just has to find it.

 

[Lloyd_E]

Hay Furnace...

NS farmer has an answer to energy and greenhouse gas problems - NB-NL-NS-PEI - Farm Focus

or

http://www.pami.ca/pdfs/reports_rea...eating_fuel_719.pdf#search='straw bale burner

 

[Travelover]

Works for horses.

 

[EddieWalker]

Do you want to do this because you hope to save money using hay for fuel instead of wood or something else?

The simple rule for getting heat is that the denser the material, the more heat you get from something the same size. That is why oak is better then pine. It would also mean that pine would be much better then grass.

The cost to build something to burn and distrubute grass for heat sounds expensive. Especially if you want to make it efficient, easy to load and strong enough to last for decades.

Then there is the expense of getting it from the field, to where you will store it, and then keeping it going to get heat from it.

All of this makes it sound very hard to justify the expense and energy required to be worth while.

Eddie

 

[blunosr]

Lloyd, Thanks for those links! I'm going to look up that guy in Pictou this summer...

My little 40ac farm is also in Nova Scotia. There are many small, unused farms in NS and very few people are still farming, so there really is little or no market for hay. Many of us have hay land, which we either knock down to control the weeds (and prevent fires) or lots of folks just let them grow up in weeds, alders, and wild apple trees... and ant hills. It makes me crazy to see the state of decay of agriculture in Nova Scotia. When I retire I want to do something about it! I want to see all these old fields maintained, and to be used productively would be even better!

In the mean time, I work 6000kms away for ten months of the year... And I'd like to think up a use for my hay, which I cut every year. And sometimes I can even talk someone into taking it, for free of course... 'cause hay is worth nothing around my neck of the woods.

Sad,

Bye for now,

 

[quicksandfarmer]

When I was a kid one of my favorite books was "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. A crucial part of the plot was they ran out of firewood and had to burn hay to stay warm. They spent all day hauling it and feeding the fire because it had such low fuel value.

I use bales to start burn piles and I have found they don't have much fuel value.