Testing of Our New Rocket Stove

Back in January I was introduced to the Rocket Stove.  It is a hand made, economical, very efficient cooking and heating tool. The principles were described by Dr. Larry Winiarski from Aprovecho in 1982 and stoves based on this design won Ashden Awards in both 2005 and 2006. Interest in rocket stoves has led to the development of rocket mass heaters and other innovations. Source and photo (left) by Wikipedia, Rocket Stove.  They are available to purchase, but can easily be built with local materials at a fraction of the cost. I don't want to under emphasize the value of how little wood this stove uses.  It has allowed people in remote African and South American countries to use small sticks, leaves and grass to cook and heat for their families and not have to wander into dangerous remote areas to collect large amounts of firewood.

I built mine with materials purchased a the local home center, some scrap 4 inch PVC pipe, cut at a 45 degree angle and an old 5 gallon bucket.  I spent about $30, for materials enough to build two stoves. I followed the instructions from Gene Lonergan on YouTube when I made the stove. I mixed my Cement/Perlite mixture at 8:1 by volume using an empty coffee can and a wheel barrow. If I did it again, I would use 6:1, decreasing its thermal conductivity a bit and increasing its mass and structural stability.  As is, the weight of my stove is about 6 lbs, and as you can see from the photo (right), is light enough to sit on a glass table without worrying about breakage.  Also notice that it is the shape of a 5 gallon bucket.

Cooking with the stove.  For free, I was able to get gas stove grates from the local scrap yard to place on top of the stove, and underneath the cooking surface to allow for adequate air flow.  With the handful of dried sticks shown, Sandy and I were able to cook a meal of Blackend fish in the cast iron skillet.

One thing I need to add is this is not a coal burning fire!  Just the opposite.  It is a voracious wood burner, but in very small amounts.  It is best to use longer sticks than the ones I used, so as to be able to feed them into the fire.  We kept stoking the fire to provide a continual hot fire throughout the cooking process, and when the meal was done we stopped the wood feed.  After that, the fire was virtually out in 10 minutes.  At no time did the table or sides of the Rocket Stove come even close to warm to the touch.  The insulating properties of the volcanic Perlite responded as predicted.

For survivalists, naturalists and those interested in inexpensive sustainable energy tools and resources, the Rocket Stove is a Top 10 innovation in my opinion!

A Cliche Saved My Life

Most people dislike cliches because of their nature; trite, over used words and phrases. But one for me stands out, which is “go with the flow”. Stay with me, because that phrase literally and figuratively have saved my life. Throughout my career employers have used this phrase or its related forms, such as “adapt”, “embrace the change” and “this is the new normal” to express major changes in an organization, usually due to management turnover or budget cuts.

I gotta tell you a story about how this “adaptation” literally saved my life. My buddy Jim (pictured right) taught me how to fly fish. So once I felt pretty confident in my gear and skills, I took off to a part of the Little Bear River in southern Idaho to catch some fish. I think it was late June, when the water is still frigid cold, but the mountain run off has slowed down enough to see the rocks in the shallow places and near shore.

I got my gear together the night before, tackle, waders, cooler, etc. and the next morning I stopped by Burger King and picked up two 99 cent whoppers, one for lunch and one for on the way home and tucked them under the seat of my car. I arrived at the rivers edge about 11am and the call of the river beckoned me to hurry, yet I was enjoying the view of the mountains and greenery of my surroundings.

As usual, one hardly ever gets a bite on their first cast so I tried and tried, moving up and down the shoreline, moving out into the deeper water current as I went. Then suddenly I took one step too far into a drop-off that went over my head. My waders instantly filled with ice cold water and I found myself being sucked in deeper and faster! It was at that instant that I thought “go with the flow”. Thinking back, I consider it now one of those “God moments” when panic left me and was replaced by peace and rational thought. So instead of fighting the ice cold current, I raised my rod over my head and let the river push me downstream which naturally led me to a shallow bend where I was able to walk out and compose myself.

If I had fought the current and tried to immediately get to high ground I might have perished. But, instead I was willing to go a bit out of my way following the flow for a hundred feet or so and come out just fine.

So what’s the moral of the story? #1, don’t fish alone in the wilderness where nobody knows your whereabouts, and #2, the longer way, or new, different way than you insist upon may be a better way for you to go. Counsel with family, friends, those wiser, and especially God before we make up our mind on how things have to be, “God’s ways are not our ways…” and situations may turn out better than we expected.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  - Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)