[Stoves] Jed's questions regarding stoves for Cameroon

Wed Oct 22 06:11:29 CDT 2014

Is the main challenge to use the dried waste as a fuel?

Is there a request to make the cooking/heating operation more fuel efficient?

The ignition of the dried waste will be made much quicker by using a half metre high ‎'lighting cone' with is roughly 150mm in diameter at the bottom and 75mm at the top. The bottom can suit the chamber. Light the fuel and place the cone over it a big snug. It will dramatically reduce smoke and light faster.

Cheap and reusable. Not part of the stove.

Regards
Crispin in Washington

BBM 2B567CC3
From: Huck Rorick
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 23:38
To: jed.building.bridges at gmail.com; stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Reply To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: [Stoves] Jed's questions regarding stoves for Cameroon

Hi Jed,

I don’t know if I ever responded to your questions.

I posed them to our team in Cameroon and below are some of the answers.  Attached are a few relevant photos.

Your further suggestions and comments are appreciated.

Huck

From: Pearly Wong [mailto:pearly419 at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 10:58 AM
To: Huck Rorick
Subject: Re:

Hi Huck, my comments are in blue

已从三星tablet发送

-------- Original message --------
From: Huck Rorick <huckrorick at groundwork.org>
Date: 21/09/2014 14:05 (GMT+08:00)
To: Pearly Wong <pearly419 at gmail.com>,carybeth.reddy at gmail.com,takortambetambe <takortambetambe at yahoo.com>
Cc: United Action for Children <unitedactionforc at yahoo.com>
Subject:

Hi Pearly, Cary & Takor,

Please take a look at the note below from Joshua Guinto (member of a very interesting discussion group on improved cook stoves) and answer as many of his questions as you are able.  I inserted some of my comments in red.

Huck

Dear Huck

My name is Joshua Guinto. You may call me Jed. Im from the Philippines Im one of the side participants in the stove list serve.

I work mostly with the rocket stoves but recent lessons i learned from the stove design community prompted me to tinker on the gasifier camp. And so now im working on some prototypes of rocket-gasifier hybrids made of terra cotta and that can produce char after cooking in air tight terra cotta char box.

I appreciate your comprehensive report on the local situations that covers the cooking habits, the fuel available, the kitchen and the food preparations. The reports help us designers to draw ideas from our idea banks.

I have a few questions

1. Palm oil was mentioned in the report. How extensive is the oil palm plantation? Where does the oil go?

Some but not all farmers have oil palm plantations. The oil is extracted and sold as cooking oil either in the village or the nearby town. People who do not own oil palm plantation will however request the wastes from those who have it.

What remains after extraction? Are those the seed kernels? Are they dry after pressing? Are there oil residues remaining in the shells? What is the behavior of these waste when used for cooking?

The fresh palms go through three processes. First they are cooked in big drum with fire. They will then be milled using a miller, and recooked once more to ensure all oil residues are gotten rid of. The leftover are the seed kernels and dried fiber leftover. Please look at document attached.  They are completely dry after processing without oil residues. Basically these wastes are only used together with firewood in the beginning of cooking as it helps the firewood to catch fire. There will be a lot of smoke emitted from the palm waste in the begining when it is heating up until it catches large fire. However once fire is caught, the emission of smoke is reduced to a usual firewood level.

Do you observe oil residues on the soil/base of the stove after or while cooking?

Our cooks said no. They insist the palm waste has been completely dried

How would you describe the smoke when these wastes are used?

See above

2. Is pottery a tradition in Besongabang? Do they have enough clay deposits and the skills to make clay pots?

There is no pottery tradition in Besongabang. Most are not aware if there is clay soil in the village. Some said there is but they are not sure of the location and need to search for it. They generally do not have skills to make clay pots.

3. The report mentioned cooking being at some point as a social activity. And now that you are into housing design and construction. would your architects explore this house design paradigm of common or shared kitchen?   Of course we will.  But Jed seems to be thinking of a shared kitchen whereas you have described people sharing food, which would work somewhat differently.

4. If so.... how would a garden around the houses clusters be affected by the house design? Do you see a shared garden? or at a minimum a place for social interactions?   My impression is that people keep their own gardens so a shared garden would probably not be something we would use.  However, I think we very strongly see creating a place (part garden, part house) that is a place for social interaction.  Talking of shared gardens also raises the question of community interaction and how different dwelling interact with the others.  We could, for example, have each house rather separate but opening to a more communal space  (which in many places is the street).  Or, we could have clusters of houses (which seems to happen with extended families in Besongabang and/or with rental units.  Manyi’s house had his family and a couple of rental units all together, sharing outdoor space and a number of facilities.

i ask these sociological questions because it connects deeply into the stoves and kitchen and garden  and house design.  Yes.

As i understand it from the report, the households would prefer a a stove with a table top, several ports and one that leads to a corridor where they prepare food, do the laundry and eventually lead to the garden.

It is a kitchen that is semi enclosed but allows interaction with the rest of the household chores as well as their neighbors. Yes.  And we should discuss more about what is useful for interaction within the household and what is useful for interaction with neighbors.

If this understanding is correct, then you have there a community element that is worth preserving and nurturing, even if it has to begin with the stove design.

And if this is making sense... i will present on the next round the stove prototype which im working now. It is a lego brick stove that can be built as a rocket stove or as a gasifier stove for a single port or several ports, with or without a chimney or a table top...  from individual lego shaped fire bricks.

There are more to discuss on this thread but i park my ideas for now.

Jed Guinto

Philippines

Huck Rorick

Executive Director
Groundwork Institute
2640 Silvercrest Street
Pinole, CA 94564
Phone: 510-222-4111
email:  <mailto:huckrorick at groundwork.org> huckrorick at groundwork.org
Website: www.groundwork.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20141022/97d459a3/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Stoves mailing list

to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org

to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org

for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/