[Stoves] Safety of stoves and conflicts of interests

[ahmed hood]

Dear Crispin,
   
  The discussion on stoves' issues is very fruitful and a lot of information is exchanged helping people to catch new ideas, upgrade products and make new innovations. Thanks a lot, I really benefited  from the information made available.
   
  As I am leading a fuel switching, from fuelwood to LPG, project in Sudan, I am very much interested to know about the South Africa 15 sets of regulations covering the various parts of LPG stove. It will help us improve our safety awarenes program.
   
   
  Best regards
   
  Ahmed Hood
   
  C/O Practical Action - Sudan
  Khartoum

  
Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:
  Dear Dean and Paul

The issue of being legal is important. In some places you sell anything
that is not illegal (the 'American' model), in some only what is legal (the
'Soviet' model). 

In general, you can sell in the US something that will not get you sued if
it is misused and the users burn themselves. Product design and performance
criteria in the US are largely driven by insurance companies selling product
liability insurance. If you can't reasonably be sued if the user burns or
poisons themselves, you can probably sell it, unless is it a product for
which there are controlling regulations which it does not meet. LPG stoves
are highly regulated, alcohol stoves are not. In South Africa there are 15
sets of regulations covering various parts of an LPG stove even though the
CO emissions from one are very low. There are no regulations at all for
ethanol or charcoal or coal stoves even though the CO from them is really
dangerous.

Paul can sell his Lily stove anywhere that is it not illegal to do so. That
doesn't make it 'safe. Were there to be even the most basic set of safety
standards in force, it would include a requirement not to leak if tipped
over while burning, because that is how nearly all stove-initiated fires
start.

There are very expensive paraffin stoves for use in sailboats that have very
low emissions and are really safe even in violent seas. So...why haven't
they been brought to the mass market? They cost is now related to the tiny
sales volumes so it looks like an opportunity going begging.

You can sell any wood-fired heating stove in Canada you want (but not
chimneys) because there are no regulations on them, except British Columbia
which recently adopted the US regs. The Wild West still lives on in the
Great White North.

Regards
Crispin (from Canada!)



-----Original Message-----
From: stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Dean Still
Sent: September 2, 2007 1:13 AM
To: 'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves'
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Safety of stoves and conflicts of interests

Dear Paul,

Is your stove more dangerous than the Dometic stove? Isn't it legal? We use
alcohol stoves in boats all the time. They sell alcohol burning camping
stoves in the US that seem similar to yours...where's the problem?

Best,

Dean


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