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Fuel-Saving Mudstoves
Environmental Preservation
All over Madagascar and right in our village, trees and entire forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the impacts on the environment are a web of degradation: erosion of precious fertile topsoil, flooding, decreasing potable water quality and availability, animal habitat loss, ecosystem change. The need of the growing population for cook-fire fuel is among the major causes of forest depletion in the region, where people cook over charcoal or dead wood and whose cookstoves are not efficiently designed.
After researching different models of mud-built stoves, designed both in Madagascar and abroad, and conducting several months of trainings and focus groups in our area, an appropriate mudstove formula and design was developed. We formed a small association dedicated to building mudstoves at a low price as well as teaching people to build their own. Through small private donations, the association acquired some basic equipment (buckets, trowels, dust masks, measuring tape, notebooks) and began constructing a small “mudstove center” (its walls made with our mudstove mixture!) to be used for the association’s stove-building and training activities.
Building the Mudstove
The stoves are based on the “Louga” model stove developed in Senegal. The formula uses three parts sand, two parts red dirt, one part ash, and water. The dry ingredients are first sifted, and then mixed together thoroughly; water is slowly added to obtain a firm but workably-wet consistency. The stove size is determined according to the pot: the base diameter must be twice as much as the widest part of the pot, 5cm thick, with a “firebox” space of 10-15cm from the base to the pot bottom. The circular stove’s wall angles inwards as it rises toward the top; it should surround the pot up to jus below its handles, tapering to at least 10cm thickness (for proper insulation), leaving just 1cm between the pot and the stove wall.
The stove should be built in phases over two to three days, depending on how rainy and humid the days are. Leave it to dry overnight after the base is completed, and position a placeholder at least 10cm smaller than the diameter of the pot bottom (to avoid filling it with mud while building up the stove wall). Let the stove dry again overnight after the wall has been built up to just below the pot handles. The following morning, carve out the “seat” of the pot, using a knife and a spoon to cut and scoop away all but three “pedestals”, so that if you look at the stove from above it resembles a three-leaf clover inside. In between two of the pedestals, carve out a square “door” for introducing wood into the firebox; for a large stove, two doors may be carved, so the wood will criss-cross inside the firebox. The door(s) should not be too large, only as high as the pot bottom and no wider than the height. This prevents excess or insufficient airflow, for optimum combustion.
See the diagram for a better view – this diagram was created as a teaching tool for Peace Corps Volunteers training to be in the Health Sector in Madagascar, to build their capacity to create environment projects to complement their community health activities.
The walls of the Louga stove heat up as the fire grows hotter, preventing heat loss and heating the contents of the pot from all sides; in this way it acts like a thermos and an oven, a key to its efficiency. The stove uses dead wood for fuel; when the body of the stove is firm but not completely dry, a section of wall about fifteen centimeters wide should be cut out, from the floor of the stove to the base of the pot, for putting in wood. In dry conditions, the stove should be built over a period of two days, and left to dry for at least four days. The first fires should be small, with heat increasing slowly so as to prevent cracking. If the stove wall does crack in the building and drying process, roughen and moisten the surface around the crack and cover with a "patch", a small clump of the sand, dirt, ash, and water mixture used to make the stove.
The dried stove is strong and hard like cement, but as it is not waterproof it should be used in a place shielded from rain. It is not difficult to add a chimney, creating a second hole in the wall below the pot, and funneling the smoke through a mud, brick, or bamboo chimney, or simply through the wall to the outdoors (if cooking is done indoors). In Antsaravibe, mostly everyone cooks outside, and only one of our early models has a chimney attached. Thus far we've focused on using low-smoke wood and educating on the importance of using properly dried, dead wood (as opposed to cutting live branches), which is naturally less smokey. For some larger models we have added a second hole for pushing in wood about 45 degrees from the first hole; this can make it easier to criss-cross the wood under the pot and allow good airflow for a healthy fire. It is important, however, not to allow too much or too little airflow in order to not compromise the stove's efficiency (with the fire burning too hot too fast, or not staying lit).
Project Sustainability
There are currently four people well-trained in making the mudstove, who will use the mudstove center as a base for training the public how to make their own stove as well as for producing stoves in quantity, to sell. The stove price is around 8,000 Ariary depending on size, which is about USD $4 and only 50 cents more expensive than the three-pronged pot stand or the metal charcoal cooker used by the general population. A portion of the income generated from building stoves will help to keep it supplied with the few materials it requires, and will help its staff to continue to innovate and modify the stove design.
The center is also expecting to secure the support of ANGAP, the Malagasy agency of environmental protection and parks management, to help with future small endeavors like printing a brochure, printing posters, or otherwise broadening the project’s ability to create positive behavior change in the community.
For more info
This is obviously not a highly technical explanation or a project requiring extremely precise measures; however, the increase in burning efficiency and hence the savings in time, money, and firewood use is quite significant, balanced with a construction method that uses local materials in a sustainable manner, and is simple and cheap enough for a poor, rural population to learn to make and use. Other models will work better for other regions and communities – depending on available materials, cooking habits, and income levels – but this Louga variation was found to provide the greatest environmental and economic benefit for our circumstances.
There is a wealth of more precise information available on the physics of cookfire efficiency; all of my research has come from resources available from our Peace Corps library, plus some internet research. Motivation, design ideas, and experience shared by other Enviroment and Health Sector volunteers were also invaluable - thank you for your inspiration!
All over Madagascar and right in our village, trees and entire forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the impacts on the environment are a web of degradation: erosion of precious fertile topsoil, flooding, decreasing potable water quality and availability, animal habitat loss, ecosystem change. The need of the growing population for cook-fire fuel is among the major causes of forest depletion in the region, where people cook over charcoal or dead wood and whose cookstoves are not efficiently designed.
After researching different models of mud-built stoves, designed both in Madagascar and abroad, and conducting several months of trainings and focus groups in our area, an appropriate mudstove formula and design was developed. We formed a small association dedicated to building mudstoves at a low price as well as teaching people to build their own. Through small private donations, the association acquired some basic equipment (buckets, trowels, dust masks, measuring tape, notebooks) and began constructing a small “mudstove center” (its walls made with our mudstove mixture!) to be used for the association’s stove-building and training activities.
Building the MudstoveThe stoves are based on the “Louga” model stove developed in Senegal. The formula uses three parts sand, two parts red dirt, one part ash, and water. The dry ingredients are first sifted, and then mixed together thoroughly; water is slowly added to obtain a firm but workably-wet consistency. The stove size is determined according to the pot: the base diameter must be twice as much as the widest part of the pot, 5cm thick, with a “firebox” space of 10-15cm from the base to the pot bottom. The circular stove’s wall angles inwards as it rises toward the top; it should surround the pot up to jus below its handles, tapering to at least 10cm thickness (for proper insulation), leaving just 1cm between the pot and the stove wall.
The stove should be built in phases over two to three days, depending on how rainy and humid the days are. Leave it to dry overnight after the base is completed, and position a placeholder at least 10cm smaller than the diameter of the pot bottom (to avoid filling it with mud while building up the stove wall). Let the stove dry again overnight after the wall has been built up to just below the pot handles. The following morning, carve out the “seat” of the pot, using a knife and a spoon to cut and scoop away all but three “pedestals”, so that if you look at the stove from above it resembles a three-leaf clover inside. In between two of the pedestals, carve out a square “door” for introducing wood into the firebox; for a large stove, two doors may be carved, so the wood will criss-cross inside the firebox. The door(s) should not be too large, only as high as the pot bottom and no wider than the height. This prevents excess or insufficient airflow, for optimum combustion.
See the diagram for a better view – this diagram was created as a teaching tool for Peace Corps Volunteers training to be in the Health Sector in Madagascar, to build their capacity to create environment projects to complement their community health activities.
The walls of the Louga stove heat up as the fire grows hotter, preventing heat loss and heating the contents of the pot from all sides; in this way it acts like a thermos and an oven, a key to its efficiency. The stove uses dead wood for fuel; when the body of the stove is firm but not completely dry, a section of wall about fifteen centimeters wide should be cut out, from the floor of the stove to the base of the pot, for putting in wood. In dry conditions, the stove should be built over a period of two days, and left to dry for at least four days. The first fires should be small, with heat increasing slowly so as to prevent cracking. If the stove wall does crack in the building and drying process, roughen and moisten the surface around the crack and cover with a "patch", a small clump of the sand, dirt, ash, and water mixture used to make the stove.
The dried stove is strong and hard like cement, but as it is not waterproof it should be used in a place shielded from rain. It is not difficult to add a chimney, creating a second hole in the wall below the pot, and funneling the smoke through a mud, brick, or bamboo chimney, or simply through the wall to the outdoors (if cooking is done indoors). In Antsaravibe, mostly everyone cooks outside, and only one of our early models has a chimney attached. Thus far we've focused on using low-smoke wood and educating on the importance of using properly dried, dead wood (as opposed to cutting live branches), which is naturally less smokey. For some larger models we have added a second hole for pushing in wood about 45 degrees from the first hole; this can make it easier to criss-cross the wood under the pot and allow good airflow for a healthy fire. It is important, however, not to allow too much or too little airflow in order to not compromise the stove's efficiency (with the fire burning too hot too fast, or not staying lit).
Project Sustainability
There are currently four people well-trained in making the mudstove, who will use the mudstove center as a base for training the public how to make their own stove as well as for producing stoves in quantity, to sell. The stove price is around 8,000 Ariary depending on size, which is about USD $4 and only 50 cents more expensive than the three-pronged pot stand or the metal charcoal cooker used by the general population. A portion of the income generated from building stoves will help to keep it supplied with the few materials it requires, and will help its staff to continue to innovate and modify the stove design.
The center is also expecting to secure the support of ANGAP, the Malagasy agency of environmental protection and parks management, to help with future small endeavors like printing a brochure, printing posters, or otherwise broadening the project’s ability to create positive behavior change in the community.
For more info
This is obviously not a highly technical explanation or a project requiring extremely precise measures; however, the increase in burning efficiency and hence the savings in time, money, and firewood use is quite significant, balanced with a construction method that uses local materials in a sustainable manner, and is simple and cheap enough for a poor, rural population to learn to make and use. Other models will work better for other regions and communities – depending on available materials, cooking habits, and income levels – but this Louga variation was found to provide the greatest environmental and economic benefit for our circumstances.
There is a wealth of more precise information available on the physics of cookfire efficiency; all of my research has come from resources available from our Peace Corps library, plus some internet research. Motivation, design ideas, and experience shared by other Enviroment and Health Sector volunteers were also invaluable - thank you for your inspiration!
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, Feb 10 2007, 3:30 AM EST
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