Ferfal,
Thanks for your blog and book, I really enjoy them and have found lots of fantastic information.
I would like to share these two innovations with you.
I am a European and have no affiliation with the company that makes them.
The first is the Ecofan
Caframo Limited Ecofan Ultrair
Ecofans for Woodstoves generate their own electricity from the surface heat of your wood stove and circulate warm air throughout the room, increasing your comfort.
It is a fan that turns by the heat that the woodstove produces. Instead of letting the heat go up to the ceiling it directs it in the room and lets you have a feeling of warmth a lot faster.
I got one from a friend to try out, I put it on the stove and directed it to my wife, without her knowing it. Suddenly she felt something was different, looked at the stove and said without hesitation: “What is that, I want it!” My wife couldn’t live without one.
If you have a woodstove it is a very good upgrade.
The other item is the Joi light
Caframo Limited JOI Candle Powered Lamp
You can have electric light without using batteries. The Joi Light uses the heat produced by a tea light candle to let several LED shine. The light burns as long as the candle burns. It shines brightest in a room with a cool temperature. If used in a heated room the light is strong enough to read by if used as a desklight.
Please don’t use my name and emailadress.
thanks
J-
Hello J,
I’ve seen some of these before and I think its very interesting how they turn heat to electricity.
To be completely honest, I don’t think the Joi light makes much sense at all. To use a candle to get a bit of LED light sounds awfully impractical, even more so at such a high price. For something like that, (small scale) long term off-grid illumination, I’d go for something like the WakaWaka Lamp that uses solar power, has good battery capacity and works nicely as a lantern. All at 1/5 of the cost of the JOI and it doesnt need candles to work. So far, I’ve been using a Waka Waka Power unit and it still works as advertised, which is rare with most of these products.
The fan for the wood stove does look nice. I see how it might help send hot air in a specific direction and help increase the heating radius. That it uses power generated from the same stove is a nice solution for off-grid situations.
These products remind me of the BioLite Wood Burning Campstove.
BioLite Wood Burning Campstove
The Biolite stove uses the same heat of the stove to power a fan for the stove and recharge electronic gadgets. I’m not fully sold on the idea though. Again, a more simple solar panel like the Waka Waka Power seem like a better, more simple and light weight solution but reviews seem to be pretty favorable for the BioLite. Then again, the WWPower is a lanter/charger while the Biolite is a Stove/charger. Two different creatures.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.