January 2010

Haiti Charcoal Stove

26 January 2010 - 6:45pm

Haiti Charcoal stove
Bootstrapper January 26, 2010

The day of the earthquake I was in Haiti and took the attached picture of a charcoal stove in a school kitchen that afternoon. The other method used to cook was a 3-stone fire.

The day after the earthquake we were walking thru a neighborhood seeing if we could help anyone when I observed a strange sight. It was the location of a charcoal seller and the entire floor of this location was charcoal powder or dust. This "floor" was at least 3 to 4 foot thick. My thinking at that time was this is a tremendous energy resource. Time did not allow close inspection or even talking with the operators.

On my return home, I made a quick "how to" document on using the charcoal powder with a binder to hand make briquettes. I've sent the document to my contact in Haiti and asked that he take it to the charcoal seller and see if he knows how to use that charcoal powder/dust. No reply yet.

There may be hundreds of charcoal sellers in Haiti with hundreds or thousands of pounds of charcoal dust or powder that can be made into briquettes.

Haiti Charocal Stove

26 January 2010 - 6:43pm

Effective Combined Tin-can-stove-grate

26 January 2010 - 5:09pm

Boll

Martin Boll, January, 2010

Take a normal 870ml (fruit-) can, cut with a sharp-edged knife parallel cuts in the bottom with about 5mm distance.

1.-Bend with a screw-driver and pliers the metal-ribbons to get a grate.
This alone works well, but looses some fuel/charcoal.

2.- Form a “plissee”-metal-sheet (pleated) out of the side of a (10cm
diameter) can.

Each zig-zag-side about 1cm. The angles 60°. Put the can with slits ( like
1.-) onto the plisse-grate/support, so that the slits cross the plies in 90°.

-The plissee-lines are directed in wind-direction.

-The ashes on the pleated-metal-sheet can be cleaned with a thin stick or wire, while burning; but caution, that the tin-can-stove does not tumble.

-Another advantage of the plissee is, that the grat/bottom is heat-isolating and protected by the ashes. The charcoal falling through the upper gate is burning on the ashes on the plissee.

Metal

Tincanium

Lighting the Everything Nice Stove

26 January 2010 - 4:23pm

Andrew Ma, January 2010

My favorite method in is to use trailgear555's stick method:

Since my skewer sticks are rather thin and it is below freezing, I spread pieces from a crunched tea light candle at the bottom to ensure a single match lighting.
Skewers are bone dry so it works well by placing the sticks on the can first and just light the top of the pile.

Video from my experiment:

Boiling water test PekoPe WoodGas

26 January 2010 - 4:04pm

Boiling-test-PekoPe-WoodGas.jpg

Boiling water PekoPe WoodGas 2009

26 January 2010 - 4:03pm

Boiling-water-PekoPe-WoodGa.jpg

Clean burning PekoPe 2009

26 January 2010 - 4:02pm

Clean-burning-PekoPe-2009.jpg

TLUD ND Peko Pe

26 January 2010 - 3:25pm

Formo

Otto Formo, January 2010

Clean burning PekoPe 2009

The Peko Pe is an easy to built, top lit, natural draft (no fan) gasifying stove that burns biomass completely (low to no ash or char). It is

Efficient: easy to light, easy to handle, cooks quickly at high temperature.
Complete combustion no smoke and no soot
Flexible Covering all needs of energy for all types of household and institutional kitchen and other activities like take away food, bakery etc.
Simple Not intimidating technology.

The Peko Pe

The Energy Unit, single also called Peko Pe is designed to cover the general basic need for energy, but can be manufactured both smaller and bigger.

The combustion chamber is the heart of the system, and from there the heat will be consentrated up under the pot. The Energy Unit can be used both for cooking and for heating. Single, as a cooking or heating stove, it will cover the basic needs of energy for smaller household. More units put together will cover the need of energy for bigger houshold, institutional kitchen and pots of any size.

Boiling water

Boiling test

The fuel
Any kind of dry combustible biomass can be used as fuel.

The fire has complete combustion; is High temperature. No smoke. No soot. Some tar under the pan. Sensitive to wind

The usage
It is New technology and requires some training, but it is Easy to use; Flexible; Fits all types of kitchen utensils; and transmits No heat to the sides.

For more information, take a look at the Peko Pe web site: http://www.pekope.net/stove.html
and also the Miomio site: http://www.miombo.no/