[Stoves] Broken Brick Mixed with Charcoal

[cornelio torrijos]

Hi Ken,

Great information on saving fuel!
Observant simple folks have much to say about fuel and cooking by their
actions.
Brick scraps mixed with charcoal! Interesting.

Cornelio

On 12/23/07, ken goyer <kgoyer at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Dear friends, Somehow this email to me from Dan Wolf escaped being posted,
> so I have resent it.
> The most interesting part is about charcoal conservation by mixing brick
> scraps with the charcoal. I try and avoid charcoal experimentation but
> maybe I should start. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
> Best regards,  Ken
>
> Hey Ken,
>
> Greetings from Lira.  Just emailing to let you know of some really
> great
> developments here.
>
> After about a year and a half of ups and downs, our stove program has
> finally turned the corner.  About three and one half months ago, Brian
> Martin (who you have met) arrived here and, since that time, he has
> helped
> whip the stove team into shape.  The result is that we now have about
> 50,000 bricks on the ground and are producing stoves at a record pace
> (e.g., in a single day, our team molded 11,000 bricks).
>
> All of our bricks are now made from a woodless kiln that uses rice husk
> as
> a fuel source.  We are burning about 10,000 bricks per kiln and could
> do
> even more if we wished.  The bricks are burning very evenly and we lose
> only about 3% per kiln.
>
> The last few days we have had two especially remarkable developments.
> First, this past friday, some 500 women spontaneously showed up at our
> brick production site!  They all walked 6 to 8 km (12 to 16 km round
> trip)
> because they had heard about the stove and wanted to see if they could
> get
> one.  None of us (Mathew, Brian or I) could believe it when we heard
> and
> so we went to the kiln site to see for ourselves, where we found that
> several thousand of our bricks had, in fact, been picked up.  There are
> some indications that something similar will happen in the days ahead.
>
> The other development is even more promising.  A few days ago, I
> learned
> at a distribution that some villagers have been using broken rocket
> brick
> pieces as a fuel additive when cooking with the rocket stove.  Light
> bulbs went off in my head.  I then talked to Mary, Bonita (our new
> trainer
> and Patrick (another stove team member) about it and they have all been
> using rocket "briquettes" themselves with their "charcoal-burning"
> rocket stoves.
>
> It turns out that the rocket briquettes greatly increase the efficiency
> of
> the fuel source (whether wood or charcoal).  For instance, it normally
> takes about 50 pieces of charcoal to cook beans with a conventional
> coal
> stove and about 35 pieces with a modified rocket stove.  But if you
> cook
> with rocket briquettes, you need only 15 pieces! Moreover, the
> briquettes
> stay hot long after the coal/wood stops burning, so if you cook during
> the
> day and leave your pot on the the stove, your food will stay hot at
> night.  Last night, we experimented with the briquettes.  After a
> while,
> they were burning red hot and were indistinguishable from the charcoal.
> The implications are far-reaching to say the least.
>
> Anyway, I just wanted to give you this update.  I do hope you will be
> able
> to visit our program the next time you are in Uganda, as I know you can
> provide invaluable advice.  I hope all is well with you and look
> forward
> to talking with you in the near future.
>
> Warmest regards,
>
> Dan
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Stoves mailing list
> Stoves at listserv.repp.org
> http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_listserv.repp.org
> http://stoves.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
>