Smokeless Oven

The traditional cooking method in Uganda, particularly in rural villages, involves placing a cooking vessel on three triangulated upright stones, positioned with a central space in which a fire is set, with firewood fed in between the rocks. Whilst it is effective it is very inefficient, in that it uses a lot of firewood and it is also a health and safety risk. From a safety point of view the open fire is a risk to children and adults alike should someone stumble or trip, but more significantly, the constant daily inhalation of smoke from working over the open fire is a huge health risk to those cooking using this method.

As part of our home build projects, we build a separate, small kitchen building, usually at the rear of the home. Typically cooking facilities are kept separate from the accommodation and consist of a very simple secured building to house a stove with an area for storage of cooking vessels and firewood. We install a smokeless oven in our kitchens, which consists of two enclosed fire chambers with a front portal on each to feed firewood into. A flue at the back of the chamber takes any residual smoke out of the building, though due to the efficiency of the enclosed chamber the fire burns extremely hot which reduces the volume of smoke to negligible levels. The oven uses significantly less firewood and operates well on much smaller pieces of wood than the traditional method. An opening at the top of each chamber is set to fit various sized cooking vessels, which again increases efficiency by minimising the loss of heat.

If you or your family and friends would like to fundraise for the installation of a smokeless oven in our next home build project we’d be happy to support your fundraising efforts in any way we can. Or if you would like to donate to fund our next oven build, or a portion of the costs, you can do via the donate facility below. Thank you.