I have been wanting for quite a while to get away from using electricity (coal-generated) to heat water for washing. A week or so ago my Storm Kettle arrived from England and I’m learning to use it. It’s camping gear, but I hope to adapt it to indoor use when I install my range hood.
It’s a little firepot with double-skinned chimney on top. The double skin holds something over a quart of water. You start a fire in the base and the fire heats the water, quickly. I also have a pan holder that fits over the top of the chimney so I can put another full kettle on top of that and get almost 3/4 of a gallon of steaming hot water from a couple fistfuls of twigs and small branches.
I’m still figuring out how to get it to burn clean and fast with a minimum of smoke, but yesterday used it to catch up a backload of dirty dishes. I think I need to add a grate in the firepot to get it to burn quicker and hotter.
The problem with wood stoves generally is that they are designed to smolder and burn slowly, which creates a lot of particulate matter. Bad for breathing and for adding to the global warming problem. A clean, fast, hot burn is another matter. That’s what the Rocket Stove is designed to produce, and the Storm Kettle has a lot in common with the Rocket Stove. (Read about Rocket Stoves online — third world activists are trying to develop systems for providing them across the global south to reduce indoor pollution and reduce fuel consumption — saves time and improves quality of life.)
Also still planting like crazy, right up against the summer solstice! Sweet potatoes, dent corn, dry beans, winter squash, and sesame are planted; amaranth, more beans, more sesame, more squash I will try to get in the ground today. It is cool and lovely here.
