Indoor cooking with woodgas?

Hello George, beautiful stone construction, it seemed strange to me that you are from America, when you mentioned central Italy, it is clear to me :grinning: … we are neighbors.

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Storing woodgas and/or using it as a cooking gas indoors scares me to death.

I would not trust any indoor system with woodgas, the risk of a leak is too great. Even low levels of carbon monoxide can be toxic and damage the brain. High levels prevent your blood from carrying oxygen. The signs of carbon monoxide poisoning can be subtle and easy to miss before it is too late. For a famous example… the Disney brothers bought their mom a house with the profits from Snow White. The house had a gas furnace that was installed incorrectly and it killed the mom in her sleep. The dad barely survived.

Storing woodgas is only practical if it is pressurized and pressurizing woodgas greatly decreases the amount of trace oxygen needed for carbon monoxide to combust. A pressurized container “combusting” is better described as exploding - seriously.

Without Oxygen sensors you can never be sure you don’t have oxygen in woodgas stream. And even with a sensor, you have to trust it completely. Tar and other contaminants can easily foul an O2 sensor so it just isn’t something that is ever going to be perfectly reliable.

Woodgas already has easy storage… you store the wood. When you want woodgas you run the gasifier.

Please be careful!

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here on the foto is the electric resistance of the blower , the wire is va-inox steel for bee-honey-brood frames, 8 meters long and gives a resistance of 45 ohm and is cooled a bit in the air stream…
this piece is helpfull for lightning and regulating the gasifier, in beginning for lighting the starter coal in the retangular box is only a slow wind needed, when it glows well than a stronger wind for light the charcoal in the oxydation area.
furthermore i have seen when the blower runs on 12 volt battery- our household system, it needs not so much resistance instead when runs on a photovoltaik paneel with for example of my try 100 watt or 45watt… with the paneels the blower runs very fast, and maybee it can be to much for the motor or also too much gas production…in every way seems helpfull when the blower is to regulate

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Giorgio,
Your translation is fine. I can understand what you are “saying” most of the time.
I can see you are an innovator of the finest order. Making your own air- cooled rheostat is proof. you also just came up with a new-style blower (attaching a household vacuum cleaner disk to a custom low-voltage DC motor of your choice). I would like to agree with those who have expressed concerns of bringing CO into any closed space with humans, please be careful, and maybe we can all consider additional ways of failsafe systems. CO alarm / detector for sure. If you are not sure about the translation of a sentiment, post it in Italian and maybe we can figure it out with Google Translate or something! :cowboy_hat_face: Welcome to the forum, great questions, posts and pictures!! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Giorgio,
La tua traduzione va bene. Posso capire cosa stai “dicendo” la maggior parte del tempo.
Vedo che sei un innovatore di prim’ordine. Realizzare il proprio reostato raffreddato ad aria ne è la prova. hai anche appena inventato un nuovo soffiatore (collegando un disco per aspirapolvere domestico a un motore CC a bassa tensione personalizzato di tua scelta). Vorrei essere d’accordo con coloro che hanno espresso la preoccupazione di portare CO in qualsiasi spazio chiuso con gli esseri umani, per favore fate attenzione, e forse tutti noi possiamo prendere in considerazione ulteriori modi per sistemi di sicurezza. Allarme/rivelatore CO di sicuro. Se non sei sicuro della traduzione di un sentimento, pubblicalo in italiano e magari possiamo capirlo con Google Translate o qualcosa del genere! :cowboy_hat_face: Benvenuto nel forum, ottime domande, post e immagini!! :faccia_sorridente_con_occhi_sorridenti:

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hello mike, no worries about security…our life with our free will is a great gift of our beloved lord and godfather jesus -and is the occassion to convert from creature of god to childhood of good (gospel of john 1.12) - and this life is to precious as to make hazard with it…
indoor use of the gas only when all is safe…
thanks for your compliments, for me every talents are also a gift of god but like as a seed grain and we must “plant and watering” -will say work on it…
i am always glad when i find informations somewhere- forums ecc- for my own projects, so i also like to try with my posts to help others for their own projects-also in future- with ideas how to make something…
so also with this forum- for me a big source of information from all the professionals here what likes to share their knowledge.

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hello jeff, the idea to store the gas in a large bag is also very good, Gassack | Sattler CENO
or this:
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/geschaeftsmodell-fuer-afrika-biogas-aus-dem-rucksack.979.de.html?dram:article_id=467930

but maybee the bigger the sack costs a lot? another problem maybee mice when someone has lazy cats…also sunslight limits plastic use…
but very simple when to get cheap, and with a board on it makes the needed pressure…

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now i made a longer test with the gasifier… the electric blower works very well and also the regulation by the reostat, and consumes very less current.
but the gasifier itselfs makes problems with bridging, so after a while comes also bad gas out and the flame goes off … the goal with the gasifier was that he needs no shaking or simil operations during cooking. and also should not have stirring mechanism with electric motors ecc…with the handblower was different, this makes a bit vibrations caused from the gear and the coal falls down and not bridges. the electric blower makes nearly no vibrations, so comes up the problem…
i made some try with an inner pipe of diameter as the glowing area in the hopper inside down near to the nozzle, but not works, and also weights on the coal in the hopper, but without success…
i must look for another solution now to have a non vibrated or shaked gasifier during operation…maybee like matt ryder or kristijan leitinger and koen van looken …
maybee it depends on the fuel, i use charcoal, the other builder experts seems to use woodchips for cookers??

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Hello George, you are using a motor from a 12V fan for the blower and you have limited the speed with a resistor made of 45 Ohm wire, which acts as a voltage divider or pre-resistor. I intend to say that if you usually drive your blower muffled, you can replace your pre-resistor with another more powerful 12V motor and an eccentric weight on the shaft, ie two motors in series. The blower will run at almost full power and the vibration motor with very limited power, but the total consumption will be less than the blower itself at 12V.

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Or put weight on the ventilator or take it away and there is unbalance and your shaker?

I am very impressed by your lifestyle!

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Giorgio, are you blowing into the nozzle or sucking through the grate with your blower?

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hello don, the blower blows into the nozzle, not sucking, and the gas stream goes upward, not through the grate, because it is an updraft system…today i have seen the pages from koen van looken in thailand, he uses a 5 inch diameter pipe as hopper and oxidation. i think in this design the fuel slides down because the fireball in the oxidation has nearly the same diameter than the 5 inch diameter pipe…bridging is like a vault of bricks, for example , and this can only stand when it has a basis besides, so i think when the pipe is narrow like koen`s design, the fuel finds no basis besides and cannot build a vault-bridge, because the wide as the pipe burning area not allows this. my theory.
my other gasifiers are downdraft and sucked by the motor, and also when the gasifier stands beside and is only connected with a longer hose to the motor - also no motor vibration on the gasifer- the gasifier works for a longer time without disturb, i think because the sucking effect of the engine helps to bring down the fuel and dust and ash and so avoids bridging.
koens design seems -see fotos- to been not vibrated, they stand besides when cooking.
have you another idea?

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to joep and tone, the gasifier is heavy, and i dont think additional uncentric motor or weights would make a lot of sufficient vibration, actually the gasifier -hopper has double height because i made him higher of the lenght of a complete propane tank for the try with the inner pipe…i think the design of koen is at least the solution, my theory on the response to don mannes …
first i will try to modyfie in downdraft, that is not so difficult, than i see if something changes. one thing was nice with the actually higher hopper - the gas come out very cold, one can let the hand on the lid, it was no difference of temperature burning or not burning-of course with fullfilled hopper, with half full more heat comes up…
i have just a nice 5 1/2 inch pipe besides for a koen design, both usable updraft and downdraft…

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here some pictures of koen`s small pipe gasifiers…

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Maybe your air would blow through this burner, the burning zone turns into a wide layer, …

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hello tone, i think you mean like a ringfire? like in woodgasifiers, more nozzles, i thought also about this, a ring pipe with 5 or 6 nozzles, but the glow than would be very weak, because of 5 holes instead one, and for the kitchen cooker a soft airstream that comes from the blower seems more than enough for cooking.
the full power of the blower i use only for lighting the gasifier…

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Kristjan used a flute, a tube with holes, for his rectangular carburetors, to blow in air, where it worked well. A round unit of larger diameter, when yours is, needs a ring-shaped air intake, so the fuel collapses evenly, at least that’s what I think. Even 5 to 10W of electric power to drive the engine with an eccentric boldly shrinks your gasifier even though it is massive, if you have the engine on hand try it. :grinning:

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thanks tone, this rectangular gasifier from christian i have seen on a foto here…
i think also a ring shaped air intake could be the solution…my gasifier has about 30 cm diameter…

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Otherwise I wouldn’t like to be too wise because I’m just a beginner in building carburetors but I can say from my experiments on charcoal that adding water vapor greatly improves gas. My brother Primož, who is a doctor of mechanical engineering, even suggested adding water vapor in the gasification of wood, although here we try to eliminate excess water. He said, overheated dry air blown into the center of events forms only CO in the first impact with burning charcoal, superheated steam mixed with air can also form H2 or even CH4 in this area, I will definitely try this. I also recommend insulating the gasifier, as this way the energy is used for gasification and not for heating the surroundings and the gas will be stronger. Greetings! Tone

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an old bigger sized tire as base under the gasifier makes a very elastic unit, what can be easy combined with a excenter-electro -motor to create vibrations- only a idea from yesterday…but in the moment i will try the design with a small pipe first…

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the blower though works really well, see flame on the foto, and this is not yet full speed, in every way seems more than enough for two cooker burners.
here on the downdraft connexion…

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