[Stoves] Cooking With Corn Cobs in Saipina, Bolivia

[Robert Taylor]

David Whitfield wrote:

> Concerning the safety of using the LPG, first I have to ask, is
> bottled LPG safe?  AD recently reports that most stove injuries in
> India are from LPG.  Secondly, we did not recommend that installation
> procedure, we just reported on what we say and thought it interesting
> that they used an old gas stove as the base for their new rocket
> stove and now only use the fancy gas stove to make the morning tea.

I'm no expert on LPG safety, but the bottles can leak from the valve or the 
pipe, if they are poorly maintained, and the bottle itself can leak if it 
rusts through. If the bottle is close to a source of flame, particularly in 
an enclosed space, it would seem that any leak is more likely to lead to a 
fire or explosion than if they are separated.

Here in Taiwan the LPG bottle is usually out on the balcony, on the other 
side of a wall from the kitchen. The gas bottles are subject to periodic 
inspections and a time limit on their total life. I don't know how 
effectively these are enforced in general, but in my experience gas 
suppliers take them seriously. Most apartment kitchens have two gas burners 
(no oven) at a similar height to the hob in European and North American 
kitchens. Natural gas is available in larger towns, while LPG is the norm in 
suburban and rural areas. People cook standing up; the cooking style is 
Chinese. I don't have any statistics, but from news reports and public 
awareness campaigns I have the impression that one major kind of accident is 
small children being scalded by pulling hot pans down on themselves. I don't 
think clothing fires are a big thing here--I guess that the danger in India 
comes from the low position of the stove, and the voluminous clothing that 
women there wear. Water heating here is also mostly by gas, and, 
particularly in winter, there are often reports of deaths from carbon 
monoxide poisoning due to poor ventilation of water heaters, either because 
they are illegally installed indoors or because people have installed 
windows on their balconies and operated the heaters with the windows closed.

Robert Taylor