Sunday, November 6, 2011

Wood Shortage? No Problem. Rocket Stoves!

For those of you in more forested regions, this is a non-issue, but life in the desert is somewhat more difficult. Learning how to make full use of everything that God provides is of extreme value.

I have been researching rocket stoves in order to make the best of our limited wood supply. As a heating solution the need for wood fuel is not much of an issue. The Texas winter can mostly be dealt with by the addition of some good blankets on the bed. But if you're off-grid, cooking becomes an issue. A giant roaring fire consumes an enormous amount of wood, and in the future we may also have security concerns with the amount of smoke such a fire would produce.

Rocket stoves make use of enormously high heat and specially designed combustion chambers to hold and channel that heat while also consuming the smoke. Most of what you see as wood smoke is simply particulate matter that failed to burn ... it's wasted wood.

In this video, the stove builder puts together a basic rocket stove out of some adobe bricks. I am fairly certain that one could improve upon the basic design with ease and the internet is filled with dozens and dozens of plans for how to do this.

1 comment:

Patrice said...

Very interest topic, I researched the same thing a few months ago. I'm more interested in building one to use for cooking outdoors during the summer and during an emergency.