Eco Rocket Stove
Himalayan Rocket Stove
The Eco Rocket Stove is a passive-draft, wood-burning, combined cookstove and room heater.
The Eco Rocket Stove is a combined cookstove and space/room heater. There are three different models (the Eco1, Eco2 and Eco3) designed for heating spaces of different sizes ranging from the needs of a typical Himalayan family up to the scale of a guesthouse dining room.
It is intended to significantly reduce the amount of wood needed for cooking and household heating. It does this through its rocket stove design, which passively draws the wood gas and smoke into a secondary combustion chamber at 700 – 1000 °C where they are burnt to create additional heat energy. This near-complete combustion also means that most of the smoke is converted to end products including carbon dioxide, reducing the indoor air pollution produced by the stove.
The stove is manufactured and sold commercially by the Himalayan Rocket Stove PVT LTD and its dealers. A hot water module compatible with the stove is currently available and other modules are being developed.
The product is currently focused on the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The designers plan to scale and begin distributing the product globally sometime after 2020.
The Himalayan Rocket Stove is available for pickup from the manufacturer’s stores in Baddi, Manali, Leh, and Rekonh Peo and their dealers in the region. They also have sales outlets in Thimphu in Bhutan and Kathmandu in Nepal. Beyond these, they deliver to some other parts of India and other Himalayan countries when agreed by contacting them. Orders to locations in India can also be made through the manufacturer’s online shop.
~310 – 395 USD (23,500 – 30,000 INR)Converted on June 12th 2020
For off-grid and rural/nomadic households, traditional locally manufactured wood-burning bukharis are the primary competitors, as described here and improved variants: Portable room heater (bukhari). Metal wood-burning stoves as described here could traditionally play a similar role of both room heating and cooking.
Space heaters can also operate using various other (more expensive) power sources such as kerosene (Himtapak and SHED), gas, and electricity. K2 Appliances and Home Zene have both reviewed different space heaters available in India (both oil and electric heaters). Geothermal space heaters have also been proposed for the same target region. All of these types of heaters are likely to be less suitable for the target consumers of the Himalayan Rocket Stove, who would often collect firewood themselves to avoid any fuel cost, and also do not allow for cooking.
The Engineering for Change Solutions Library provides examples of rocket stoves that can compete with the clean-burning stove aspect of the Himalayan Rocket Stove but will not provide space heating.
The product is targeted towards people living in the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, and Bhutan who would typically use a bukhari, the traditional wood-burning space-heating cookstove that uses a flue-pipe to vent the smoke/wood gases it emits outside.
