Fuel-Efficient
Cook Stoves
This is a traditional three-rock cooking setup. It is very inefficient, needs large-diameter timber, and churns out a lot of smoke. The people using them can often be heard hacking and wheezing. During my Peace Corps service in rural Zambia, I worked to introduce healthier and more fuel efficient alternatives to a community contributing to rampant deforestation.
This is a "five-brick" rocket stove of my own design. I made a brick mold to produce trapezoidal mud bricks that are lashed together using scrap wire. The bricks only weigh a few pounds and don't require firing, they will slowly harden during the first few uses. It burns small sticks, cow dung, or maize cobs, and burns much hotter than the three-brick style. I created this portable stove to address a serious design flaw in the rocket stove design below.
This is a "CQC" rocket stove, which are promoted by Peace Corps, USAID, and others. They greatly reduce the consumption of firewood, and expose their users to much less smoke. Unfortunately, they don't last very long in the village. When a family leaves to go work in the field, their livestock, especially goats, come to sniff around for scraps. Because this design is not portable, they are quickly and repeatedly trampled and often fall into disuse. I used this style of stove for the first 3 months of my Peace Corps service.
The rocket stove design can be customized and expanded upon, like in this pass-through stove-smoker/oven I built at my house. The heat from rocket stove on the right heats a pot, and then enters the chamber on the left. One fire is used to prepare two meals. I removed the door for dramatic effect, but the smoke normally exits on the opposite side of the wall via the chimney. I used this design for the next 3 months of my service. You can see more of my house here.
I also worked to promote solar cooking technology. This simple parabolic mirror can boil water within a couple hours. It's made out of bricks, cow dung, and mylar wrappers from potato chip bags. It's great for cooking things low and slow, like beans.
The majority of the firewood utilized at village level is to heat water. With a black jug, I was able to significantly reduce my usage with the power of the sun. This is a sulphuric acid jug that I installed a tap into. It was perched atop my bathroom for the first year of my service and provided me with hot water for bathing by the end of the day.
After building a water tower with my host family, I coiled 100 meters of extra pipe on the roof of my bathroom to provide approximately 12 minutes of piping hot water for the shower. This is how I bathed for the second year of my Peace Corps service. You can see more about this project here.
While not accessible to everyone in the village, I bought a crock pot. They only utilize 25 to 50 watts and are very compatible with basic solar systems. It uses the power of the sun, but also functions on cloudy days.