An Efficient and Safe Cooking Stove for Las Delicias, El Salvador

The primary objective of this project was to design an efficient and safe cooking stove based on the resources available in El Salvador while ensuring it could be inexpensive to produce. The stove is a cuboid, 18"×18"×12" in dimension, and weighs 75 lbs. It has a top cover to cook on, and a unique three-chamber design: a chamber for combustion, a chamber to pump hot air into the combustion chamber with a bellows, and a third chamber to add insulation material. A ventilation tube connects the inner chamber with the exterior to safely vent flue gas to the outside. The stove is made out of stainless steel, and uses sand as an insulator. The product’s overall energy efficiency was calculated to be about 33%, and it requires approximately 19-20 minutes to boil 5 liters of water assuming a pot diameter of 14”. The estimated manufacturing cost of producing the first 200 stoves is $51.77 per unit, without including capital equipment costs. A unit can be priced at $65, which would give the manufacturer a 25% margin while maintaining competitiveness in the market against stoves such as Turbococina and Ecocina. The stove is estimated to cost a family $15 per month to operate, which corresponds to 50% in charcoal fuel savings compared to using an open flame. The stove can be manufactured using local labor and would take on average 6 to 7 hours to construct one unit.