Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: Rocket Stove - a resource that may be all you need. I am building one of these.
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:12:55 -0400
I recently found and posted about a website with instructions on
building a highly functional rocket stove. This info answers many
questions the average stove builder will have, i.e.
aeration, where, how much, etc. This resource may be all one will need
to design and build one that works really well, small, medium or large
(proportions will need to be adhered to
as size increases).
The definitive article on rocket stove design and construction with
downloadable video and drawings.
[I am in the process of building one of these stoves; it is the essence of
simplicity.]
Rocket stoves use twigs to cook food quickly, efficiently
When I visited Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen of Homegrown Evolution
<http://www.homegrownevolution.com/> http://www.homegrownevolution.com/ last week they showed me the rocket
stove they made in their backyard. Theirs is quite fancy because it is
made of bricks. They sometimes use their rocket stove to fry a meal in a
skillet.
The rocket stove was invented about 10 years ago by Dr. Larry Winiarski
at the Aprovecho Research Center in Oregon. It consists of an
elbow-shaped combustion chamber (usually made from metal cans)
surrounded by insulating material (often a large can filled with sand).
It uses twigs for fuel, so it's ideal for areas where the trees have
been depleted.
1.) Insulate, particularly the combustion chamber, with low mass,
heatresistant materials in order to keep the fire as hot as possible
and not toheat the higher mass of the stove body.
2.) Within the stove body, above the combustion chamber, use an
insulated,upright chimney of a height that is about two or three
times the diameterbefore extracting heat to any surface (griddle,
pots, etc.).
3.) Heat only the fuel that is burning (and not too much). Burn the
tips ofsticks as they enter the combustion chamber, for example. The
object is NOTto produce more gasses or charcoal than can be cleanly
burned at the powerlevel desired.