Evaluation of Baseline and Improved Institutional Cookstoves for kitchen air pollution and fuel consumption in Jimma University, 2015. Ethio Resource Group.
The cooking comparison tests conducted in JIT with the baseline stoves (Three stone open fire) and the improved stoves shows that the improved stoves reduce fuel consumption by about 87%, CO and PM2.5 concentration levels in the kitchen by 77%, and cooking time by 19%. It was also observed that the cooks very much liked the improved stoves for their convenience to cook with. The cooks also commented that the improved stoves help to keep the kitchen clean and hygienic as there was literally no smoke and soot to spoil the food and make running nose and watery eyes.
The size of the improved stoves was, however, commented as one of their limitations. The improved stoves come only with 60 and 100 liter sizes while most of the cooking in JIT is with 200 liter pots. Replacement of one baseline stove requires two 100 liter improved stoves. This will have implication on the number of cooks needed. One cook normally works on two baseline stoves. With the improved stoves, one cook needs to work on four stoves or more cooks are required. Despite this limitation, the cooks preferred to work on the improved stoves as cooler and smokeless kitchen helped them maintain their strength throughout the day
