Smokeless Stoves
Most Nepali households still use open fire places inside their homes for cooking, heating and light generation. Thus it does not come as a surprise that respiratory diseaases are wide spread, especially among women and children, as the pine wood used in the high altitude regions of Humla has a lot of resin and burns with lots of black smoke. Further, cooking on open fire places is a very inefficient use of this ever increasing precious biomass resource. An average household in Humla uses 20 - 40 kg firewood a day for cooking, heating and lighting. Cooking in particular uses large amounts of fire wood as the traditional meal, 'daal bhat' (rice, lentil and vegetables), has to be cooked one after the other.
The RIDS-Nepal developed smokeless metal stove protects people's health as not only is the combustion process much more efficient but it takes all the smoke out of the room through a chimney. Thus the indoor air is claen and the firewood consumption is reduced drastically by 40% to 50%. It allows people to cook 'daal bhat' all at once as it has three burners. Additionally a slit in the top heating plate enables the women to bake the traditional local flat-bread "roti" without opening the main fire door. Additionally, 9 liter stainelss steel water tank, attached to the side of the smokeless metal stove, provides clean, hot water for drinking and washing.
