[Stoves] Fan assisted stoves in Nepal

[Simon and Zoe]

Dear all,

Here's the good news: fan assisted stoves have taken off over here. It has taken some time, I saw my first one at an industry fair this time two years ago but recently they have become available all over the bazar here in Kathmandu.

The bad news is that they don't seem to be anything like the kind of stoves you guys are talking about! OK they burn pretty hot, but I've yet to see a blue flame from one.

There are lots of variations on the design too, let me try and summarise:

All stoves have these features:

- internal diameter approx. 5 inches.
- depth of combustion chamber 4-5 inches.
- A pattern of holes (approx 3/16th inch) all the way up the inside of the chamber.
- 12v fans of approx. 3 inch diameter attached normally very crudely.
- Fans on tube to one side (well away from the heat).
- Constructed of relatively thick mild steel sheet.
- Cost is 15 - 20 USD (including mains adaptor, not very useful at the moment with 6hrs a day of load shedding!).

Some stoves:
- have a plain sheet floor (ie. no air holes).
- have quite a clever design which allows ash to be removed from below (not that there is much ash).

I've tested a couple of these stoves (and one made to my own design) and am getting wood consumption at best of 100g/litre (to bring 2L of water to boil from around 20°C in 10-12 mins with no simmer time). Smoke is low enough to be invisible after the first couple of minutes.

It is probably too late now that the stoves are all over the market, but it would be great to demonstrate a really good fan assisted stove here. Can someone point me in the direction of a really good design that works well (most common fuel here is wood)? I can't get onto the 'bioenergylists.org' site at the moment, is this the one which is mentioned as being down?

I have a few other points to add about fan assisted stoves but that's enough for now!

thanks

Simon