The Wood Gas Stove - A Bosnian's Perspective

The Wood Gas Stove. The following is an article written by a gentleman from Bosnia regarding his experience using wood gas stoves and wood generators in his home country.

Wood gasifiers today to many seem like an ancient invention. This is mainly due to the technical advances that we living here in the U.S. have gotten used to. I am originally from a small country in Europe called Bosnia. There wood gasifiers are not so uncommon even today.

As a matter of fact there are more houses that used wood gasifiers than regular gas. Every time I go down to my country for visiting I am fascinated by these items. They are simply made and not hard to use at all. You simply open the door of the stove and fill it with wood and there is a on/ off button that sparks the fire.

Winters in Bosnia are very cold, and may house hold do not have the money to provide a full gas house heating. They simply use what resources they have and wood is one of them. There are a lot of trees in Bosnia, there are forests were one could easily get lost. This old technology of course has its ups and downs. In the mornings when you wake up to a freezing atmosphere it’s really aggravating to have to get up from the bed and walk down to make a fire.

It takes a long time to get things going and it’s simply frustrating. We don’t realize how convenient we have it here until we are forced to go outside of our comfort zone.

If you want to simply boil water to cook tea you have to walk outside bring the wood and make a fire. It’s like ancient technology. To many this seems like a caveman’s world, however it is something that the people in Bosnia have gotten used to.

Further more, the wood itself does not just appear. A person has to go out and purchase the wood, and then they have to go with a truck and pick it up. Often times a person has to make 8 to 9 trips back on forth loading and unloading wood. You can only image how frustrating it would be to have to just load up wood. Storage is another issue, because the wood itself has to be stored in a nice dry area. Wood that’s wet won’t burn, so you have to consider where you will store the wood so that it’s close to the house and in a dry area.

Believe me that in order to stay hot during the whole winter requires a lot of wood! Buying the wood can also be frustrating, usually people tent to go out and buy wood at the same time. It becomes a competition for wood, kind of like what we have during gas crisis.

The wood gas stove and wood gasifiers can get really frustrating, we just don’t know how lucky we are that we can have fire to cook our food by simply turning a knob. We really can’t imagine how it would be if we had to make a fire every time we want to boil water or cook. We also don’t know how lucky we are to have heating by simply flicking a button to increase our heat.

There is a couple of good thing, one being the smell that these stove generate during my morning walks. The whole city smells like burning wood and it reminds me of home. Bosnia is not the only country that is still using these items there are many like it. One more advantage in using a wood gas stove is the disposal of garbage, because anything that burns can be used in the gasifiers. Simply walk down and throw it in there.

It’s a little tricky sometimes to get a nice fire going in the gasifiers because the fires usually get big flames and the only way to put more wood in is to open it from the upper left. You really have to plan ahead one what you are going to put in it. Otherwise you’ll be walking back and forth on frequent bases to add to the fire.

There are many issues that make wood gas stove and wood gasifiers inconvenient such as storage, and buying it. I usually go down for a short visit between a month or two and I get upset with them. However that experience make me appreciate what I have here a lot more.

Every person that has never experience this should do so at least one time in their life, this will help them understand how blessed they are. To learn more about biomass fuel and the wood gas stove, click here.