Case Turner an avid outdoors person, small camp boater, and Design associate for a Architecture firm is always looking for smaller more efficient products and ideas for everyday life! Case contacted me about these alternative cook stoves and I thought they might be useful in a small space.
StoveTec was created in the fall of 2008 as a not-just-for-profit entity to act as the technology transfer recipient for the Aprovecho Research Center. ARC has worked for 30 years to design and build improved cook stoves and has completed over 100 projects in 60 countries. ARC designed StoveTec stoves with cooks to assure that cooks all over the world would love the stove.
StoveTec Stoves use 40-50% less fuel and reduce emissions by 50-75% compared to cooking with an open fire or unimproved cook stove.
Each stove prevents 60%, or 1.5 tons, of green house gas emissions every year it is used.
You can purchase a Stovetec stove or donate stoves to a country in need by going here. More information on how they are used for humanitarian needs visit the Aprovecho website.
I just ordered the StoveTec GreenFire-M MK2 which is the Deleux model. I plan to use it this summer while camping. Theres nothing better that a nice roaring camp fire untill it comes time to cook on it! Plus putting it out can be a pain.
I have thought for a long time that rocket stoves were pretty cool, and I love this one. Not that I need one, I’m still gonna go check them out.
Are they selling these stoves to people in most 3rd world countries & if so for how much (their poor) ?
~~~ It’s a Great Idea !
The stoves are donated to third world countries. You can donate stoves yourself for only $12, which includes delivery.
Looks like a gasifying wood stove, is that right?
I think that’s just your run of the mill combustion going on there. No different than burning a pile of sticks.
With the wood fed underneath it has to be an upgasing rocket stove don’t you think? Isn’t that why it is so fuel efficient and clean burning? It is consuming it’s own gas waste??? Does anyone here know? If it is a gasifyer I might be interested in one.
It seems to be far too simple for that. Here are some links about gasification and how it works, particularly in wood stoves.
http://www.woodgas.com/Woodgas%20stove.pdf
http://www.gasifyer.com/updraft_gasifier.htm
http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/stoves_listserv.repp.org/2006-April/003123.html
In any event, this seems too simple to truly be called a gasifying stove. And, since so many people have become familiar with the term gasification, don’t you think that if it met the criteria to be called a gasifying stove, it would be marketed as such? If I’m wrong, that’s just poor marketing. Finally, here’s a link to a labtest, and another pdf about stoves, hosted by none other than the Stovetec website, that make a distinction between the rocket stove and an actual gasifying stove that was also tested.
http://www.stovetec.net/us/images/stories/pdfs/MacCarty_LabComparisonBiomassCookStoves.pdf
http://stovetec.net/us/images/stories/pdfs/ProposedBenchmarks_Apr08.pdf
Well if it IS ‘just’ a woodgas stove I’m guessing the retail price includes a heavy markup. I love what they’re doing though – I can see how such a simple item can improve someones life a great deal. I hope they continue to produce in high volumes and continue to get these stoves out there.
But IMO I wouldn’t buy one, it’s not particularly hard to make one, a simple version isn’t much more than a double walled hobo stove, but I’ve found it can be tricky to get the calculations correct for total area of the inner/outer air flow holes to get efficient combustion.
A quick look on the internet can yield you instructions on how to make your own stove out of things like a large tin can, a metal barrel, bricks… I’d have a hard time paying $90 or more for something that’s clearly designed to be manufactured so cheaply that it can be given away (or practically given away). Heck, for $12 you can buy one on the website for a “needy cook.” If I buy one for 90 bucks, am I really getting mine for 12 as well, and buying six and a half stoves for needy people? If you’re going to be buying things for charity, the least you should get is a tax deduction for it; like the government needs more money to misspend.
I made one last summer for zero dollars and it works great. Just google rocket stove.
Global warming and climate change are a gigantic Lie !!!, Even a grade school child knows that it is all about the takeover of all of the worlds valuable and life sustaining Natural Resources.
We all know that it is a Corporate controled, Globalist, Socialist political take over of all the worlds resources !!!. We are not the corporation’s, the government’s or U.N.’s Property !!!, and we will not be controled as such !!!.
My and my families Rights, Freedoms, Liberty, sustinance and Survival are Not open to political negotiation, regardless of what party is in power !!!, and i will speak out against any and all threats to my family, whenever i see it.
Not everyone in the tiny house movement is an eco-nut liberal !!!. know your audience !!!, and don’t insult our inteligence with a political agenda !!!.
Yes the little stove is cool, but it would never be approved for use in the USA, besides a can of sterno set inside a larger can with some sand and some vent holes in the outer can, still beats this stove hands down in soo many ways.
Year after year, in meetings of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, at G8 and G20 Summits, behind closed doors at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and The Bank for International Settlements, small groups of indiv…iduals, whose names are unknown to most of us, gather to determine our fate and that of the human race. Their decisions have nothing whatsoever to do with the general welfare of humanity, the preservation of our Life support system or securing the blessings of liberty to anyone other than themselves. The only agenda being pursued is that which will ensure their continued ascendency to a position of complete ownership and control of Earth, all its resources and total dominance of its entire population
Agreed. And, as you’ve just demonstrated, there are other types of nuts interested in tiny houses. Thanks for that irrelevant diatribe. That’s just what this thread was missing.
Yes, and as you’ve just demonstrated, there are other types of nuts interested in tiny houses. Thanks for that irrelevant diatribe. That’s just what this thread was missing.
I apologize for the two posts. The first didn’t seem to be going through (kept saying waiting for tinyhouseblog.com to respond) so I tried to repost with a slight change in wording. Guess the website just didn’t feel like communicating well with others.
This site has gotten verrrrrry slow lately. I’ve gotten into the habit of making a post and then going to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee or going out and checking my mailbox while it loads.
When these stoves first came out, I was very excited, but didn’t have a need for one right away. They were then about $45 if I recall correctly. I wish I’d bought one then—but I will probably still buy one. I have seen the tutorials to make them out of coffee cans, but frankly those look like they’ll burn out after a few uses; the StoveTec stoves seem durable—more so now with the new models.
I wonder if the poster so disgruntled about Aprovecho using some of the profits from their enterprise for charitable purposes would be less upset if some CEO were just raking it in instead. That’s the usual way of American business, after all.
Another choice, if they ever get off their butts and offer it for sale, is the biolite – this is a top down, gasifier campstove whose fan is powered by the heat of the fire itself. So a few twigs give a clean, blue-flame burn.
I love the concept of these rocket stoves and thermal mass heaters. One day they will be common even in the USA.
@Josh
You think wrong then. It’s designed, by way of using highly insulative material, to maximise combustion temperature in order to burn more efficiently. The resulting clean burn cuts down greatly on particulate emissions and uses less fuel to cook. In places where burning a pile of sticks causes health problems and wood is hard to come by, the people appreciate the distinction.
Wrong about what? Where did I claim that it didn’t “maximize combustion temperature” or that it didn’t “burn more efficiently”? Point out where I stated that it didn’t “cut down on particulate emissions” or “use less fuel to cook”?
I eagerly await the answer.
Here:
Josh said: “I think that’s just your run of the mill combustion going on there. No different than burning a pile of sticks.”
Burning a pile of sticks, last time I did it, kicked up a whole lot of particulates. Then there’s the matter of high combustion temperature, la di da.
There’s always one.
Way to take that out of context. Since your comprehension is lacking, allow me to explain. It is “run of the mill combustion” in the sense that it is the exact same chemical process taking place as merely burning a pile of sticks. This is in stark contrast to the process of wood gasification, which was what was being discussed. Granted, it’s more efficient than simply burning the sticks, but fundamentally the same. A modern, 300 horsepower V-8 engine pollutes less, and is more efficient than an equivalent engine made 40 years ago, but, nevertheless, the the chemical reaction taking place inside the cylinder hasn’t changed.
La di da, I hope that helps clarify for you.
No, my comprehension skills are fine. Your flippancy and bounding arrogance created the ambiguity, leaving the impression that a rocket stove has no innate characteristics that elevate it above a stove that just burns a pile of sticks. A rocket stove is much more than that. It uses a lot less sticks, because it burns a lot, lot better. For that to happen, highly insulative materials need to be used for the thermal efficiency and that don’t come cheap. Not really rocket science is it?
Geez. This discussion is beginning to look like the rest of the internet. Sorry to see it here in the Tiny House Blog.
agreed.
I think the problem is that people poo poo something that they don’t fully understand, rather than reading up on the subject. Then when somebody offers some information to try to explain, pride steps in and reason steps out.
I suppose that would explain your earlier comments. A lack of understanding and inability to apply reason.
I like the idea of Biolite, because it can be added to an already efficient rocket stove to reduce emissions. Whats really cool is that the more complex biolite fan becomes much more affordable when scaled into the millions.
I just bought a comparable stove from a company called Envirofit (www.envirofit.org). I think that they are just starting out in the US, but I’ve been hearing about them for years. I bought the G3300 and it is amazing and works even better than the StoveTec.
I own three of these stoves, plus the water sterilizer. Although I also own at least a dozen other stoves and a water boiler, these are by far my favorite. Every person in the world needs one of these stoves, whether they buy it or build it.