My Countryside stove Setup

Please dont mind my home, I am still trying to finish the addition that allowed me to install this stove in the house. I have some painting to do yet, then new carpet gets installed, all before Christmas. (well its finished now as you can tell by the last pics.)

Put your mouse on the pictures to see the story of them, then click on them to see a full size picture

I started by building a Hearth Pad . . Stove set in place with fresh air intake going thru floor . pic of behind stove showing vent pipe and fresh air . Stove burning ... notice Tidy Cat container, I have wood pellets and starter gel in it. . Framing up bin over stove that will hold about 13.5 bushels of corn. . Made tapered bottom to get as much corn out as possible . tapered bottom up close . notice plexiglas windows installed so I can tell level of corn in bin. . PVC pipe installed to fill bin from basement with shop vac . pipes coming into bin at top. put screen over vac line to keep corn out. . Last side installed, all seams sealed with silicone . Bin filled with corn, notice corn in bottom 2 windows . filling stove hopper from bin, I installed a valve so I can shut off when needed. . corn quits flowing automatically when it reaches pipe . Brick look paneling installed to cover bin and framing. It now looks like a real fireplace. . I now have appr. 2 weeks of corn over my stove and it feeds in automatically. . Right side with door closed, new carpet, walls and ceiling painted . right side with door opened . Magnetic closures mounted every 16in. and 1x2 glued on to keep paneling straight . door only open about 3in., I'm still looking for the perfect handle to open it . with door closed, you can't even tell its there . Click to see big picture of this stove burning

Here's what I was after when I installed all this. I wanted to get away from filling the stove with corn every day. I didn't want to be lifting heavy containers of corn. I didn't want an ugly grain wagon or bin in my yard or driveway.But I wanted the stove to look built in and have a nice finished look to it.

Heres a little more details about my setup. I shut the valve on the bottom of the bin when I need to fill the bin with corn. I have the pipes going thru the floor into the basement where I haul in 55 gal drums of corn. I attach my shop vac to the 2" pipe and the drum of corn to the 1.5" pipe, turn on the vac, and it sucks the corn from the drum into the bin over my stove. 2 drums (which is about 12 bushels) doesn't quite fill the bin, so I estimate the bin to hold 13.5 bushels. I plan on building another bin in the basement that will hold 50-75 bushel, so then I wont need to haul corn but once every 2 months or so. The nice thing is I wont need to touch it, I'll move it all with the shop vac. Another thing I did was I put piano hinges and magnetic closures on the right side paneling to have access to the rear of the stove, the pipes and the valve, and to see the windows in the bin so I can monitor the level of the corn.

To see my corn bin downstairs and my corn screener and transfer system go to http://www.shermanpool.com/corn%20stove/cornvacandbins.html