Stoves Training Course

Mr Ozer Belir and Mr Mustafa Tumerdirim, Foresters from Turkey, attended a three week training course at Shinfield during May. Their study tour was sponsored by the FAO, and before coming to Shinfield they visited the Woodburning Stove Group in Eindhoven, and went on to spend a week with Waclaw Micuta in Switzerland.

Metal stoves for wood burning are used extensively in Turkey, and legislation is now being drawn up to prohibit the manufacture of stoves with a thermal efficiency below a prescribed level. Low interest credit has been offered to village families living in or near forest lands to purchase improved wood burning cooking and heating stoves.

According to the 1980 census 56X of the population of Turkey lives in rural areas, and consumes 60% of the firewood burnt in Turkey. It is estimated that 60% of the total heating energy required in Turkey (both urban and rural) is obtained from wood-burning.

Mr Belir and Mr Tumerdirim are shown testing a metal stove which they designed as part of the course, and which they helped to construct. They were aiming at producing an efficient wood burning stove, with an oven, which could be adapted during the cold season to provide room heating. It was also desirable that the stove be relatively simple and cheap to manufacture (in Turkey).

The initial test results showed that the stove was 75% thermally efficient when used for heating. The heat transfer to the hot-plate was good, but was poor from plate to pot. One method to overcome this would be to use various sized removable rings to sit differing sized pots over the firebox instead of on top of a hot-plate, but there was not time during the course for the Foresters to make and test this modification.

In parallel with the training course run specially for the needs of the Turkish foresters, another course was held which included the construction and testing of a small charcoal burning metal stove, and also mud and ceramic stove design, construction, and testing. This course was attended by two University of Reading students from Africa (Zambia and Tanzania, - studying for the M. Sc. course in Alternative Energy for Developing Countries), one of the lecturers for this MSc course, and an engineer from another section of ITDG. Many of the lectures in basic theories, for example on heat combustion, and stove design, and the workshop exercises, for example in metal work, were attended by the participants of both courses.

In the students' evaluation of the course they said that a longer period of time, that is, 4 weeks or more, would have been preferable in order to develop more of the practical and analytial skills required for implementing stove programmes.