Cob: RE: earthen oven in Guatemala type house.

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Fri, 8 Nov 2002, Patrick Newberry wrote:

[snip]
> build with thin walls and so I let it go. Now a new opportunity has
> arrived. There is a Guatemalan house in the village and they want to
> build an earth type oven in the house. I have been ask to help. Does any
> one have any idea of what type of earthen oven would be an authentic
> earthen oven that I can build inside this house. I have a Dec 10 th
> dead line to do this so any info etc would be good / helpful.
>
> Either a set of plans, a simple write up, or photos etc would be of
> use. I have build one earthen fireplace in a school bus before so I have
> some experience, but I'd like some authenticity. Please help with your
> ideas so that we can show these dang stick builders just what all can be
> done with earth / cob.
[snip]

Actually, based on the picture in your other email, what you are
probably looking for is plans for a "Lorena stove".  The originals were
built with an earthen cob-like mixture (possibly with some cement mixed
in, I just don't remember the details), which might be what was used for
the stove in the picture, though I can't tell.  Other more recent
rocket type stove designs are probably much more efficient, though the
Lorena is much better than the traditional approaches used at the time in
Guatemala (the Lorena stove design was created and introduced to Guatemala
about 25 years ago).  I believe there was a USAID publication on how to
make them, and there are probably others as well from Aprovecho and
possibly other sources.  Of course being a fairly recent introduction, I'm
not sure that this really qualifies as traditional.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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