When I 1st heard about Rocket Stoves and Rocket Mass heaters I was facinated by the idea. The Rocket Cook Stove was developed here in this country by Aprovecho Research Center in Oregan. It turns out that for 1/2 the people in the world the Kitchen is the place where they store their dishes, pots and pans, cook ware and appliances. For the other 1/2 of the people in the world the Kitchen is the place where they build the fire. Because of these open cooking fires woman and young children in 3rd world countrys get many health problems from breathing the smoke. It is estimated that some children breath in enough smoke to equal 3 packs of ciggarets per day. Woman have to walk for miles to collect fire wood because the forests have been all cut near the towns and citys. Buying wood or charcoal can be very expensive for people in the 3rd world countries. They need the money for food, not for fuel for the stove. A stove that uses less fuel is a Huge Deal for them.
http://www.aprovecho.org/lab/aboutarclist/arcstaff Here is a link to Aproecho center. As I read more and looked on the Net more and more to educate myself on the stoves I found a How to Video on Rocket Cook Stoves. It was in 2 parts, here they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKcb-Fw-bo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fv ... CwYlQ&NR=1
The Aproecho people want to make a stove that uses less fuel and gives off less smoke, and they want to make the stove for less than $10 so that it will be afforable to people in poor countries. After watching these videos a couple of years ago I decided to try and make one for myself. My neighbor got me 2 veggie oil cans from a local restaurant, I went down to the local Ace hardware store and bought the elbow and 4" stove pipe. The retail cost here in western Pa was $10.05, close to that they want but just a bit over budget. I had am old grate. Here is the can I used. My pictures show up small on here, click on them and they will be alot larger, if you click again you will see all of the details.
I then followed the video step by step and cut the holes, cut and installed the stove pipe and the tin can. I filled the stove with wood ashed and put on the top.
Today I decided to take some pictures and show you how it works. These are the sticks I used to boil a quart of water in my pot. I bought the pot just to use on the Rocket Stove.
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Lighting the fire.
Pot on the stove heating the water to a Boil.
Water started to boil in 3 min.
Water was at a full boil in 3 1/2 min.
It was a fun project to make, it did not take me long and it did not cost me much. I can't say that I have used it to cook much though, and I can probably tell you for sure that my wife will never cook on it, I feel it was still a very worth while experiment. They do work, and they work well and they cut down on pollution , and they are cheaper to operate. It seems like a win win win to me. By the way, the largest source of green house gas from Asia is coming from cook stoves. These Rocket cookers can make a huge difference.