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Survey of firewood consumption

There was in the project a need to quantify the savings of firewood that could be achieved by using the new KDA stove. We therefore had to carry out a survey of firewood consumption in some households in Endabash Village.

To get so great accuracy in the survey we planed the survey to be carried by a weighing of of firewood in the households.

The survey was carried out by 2 teams of two young men. Each team had a scale to weigh the firewood and some forms to fill survey data in. Each team should over a period of four days each day visit the same 10 households.
In each household they should every day way and register the amount of firewood in store in the household and how much firewood there have been brought in to the household that day.

The survey was carried out over two weeks so we were able to cover all four subvillages in Endabash Village. In this way we surveyed a total of 40 households.

The type of stoves the survey covered was distributed as follows:

• 23 households with the traditionally 3-stone fireplace
• 9 households with the new KDA stove
• 5 households with the “Lusotho type” clay stove
• 40 households were involved in the survey, but in 3 of the households the data registered was having some fault so they could not be used

The result of the survey was that we for these household found that:

• Households with the 3-stone fireplace on average used  13 kg of firewood per day
• Households with the KDA stove on average used 4 kg of firewood per day
• Households with the clay stove on average used 11 kg of firewood per day

From these results it can be seen that the KDA stove have reduced the firewood consumption down to 26 % of what a household with a 3-stone fireplace require.
Normal loads of firewood carried home by a woman normally weigh around 24 kg. This means that women with a 3-stone fireplace needs to go to the woods every second day. A woman who has got the new KDA stove only need to go every 7-8 day. I real live even less because they will with this type of stove be able to find suitable firewood around their house, some women have expressed that they only goes two times a month.