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Bamboo solar cooker

This is a Bamboo Solar Cooker which only costs $1 to make. Here is proof that solar cooking needn’t be an expensive affair. One of my readers Krishna - rkrao, kindly sent in the picture below showing the simplicity and beauty of a bamboo solar cooker. Here are Krishna’s notes for building such a simple and effective solar cooker.

Materials used:

  • Baskets made from bamboo
  • Food serving plates
  • Cooking vessel

And that’s it. In less than one minute of assembling parts which can be gathered in no time at all you can have your very own solar cooker. See I told you solar cooking wasn’t that difficult.

The bamboo solar cooker is a simpler version to that of the parabolic reflector.

Further information

Baskets are used in villages for carrying hay and other agricultural produce. Similar baskets made a little sturdily are used in urban areas to carry the bride in marriage ceremonies!

Food serving plates are made of thick paper/thin cardboard and upper surface is covered by a water resistant film of thin aluminium foil/silver coloured polythene.

Well-to-do families eat food on silver plates and use silver tumblers for drinking water even to-day (perhaps due to its antibacterial properties) and silver vessels are used in all auspicious occasions, so these plates are covered in silver film, good for us solar enthusiasts! These plates are available in all provision shops and can be as cheap as one Rupee.

A glass vessel for cooking is not the best, as they are not available locally (India), besides they are expensive and liable to break. An aluminium vessel with a thick black polythene bag should serve. The recycled black garbage bag was tried, but melted due to the heat. The cooker is intended for the very poor, however the limitation is that they are mostly daily wage workers and will be in the work-spot in mid-day when the cooker works best. This is one reason solar cooking has not become popular in poor communities across the world, but they can be uses to kill pathogens and purify drinking water by reaching only 65 degrees centigrade.

"This cooker with water in a vessel can be left in the sunny part of the backyard and the family can get safe water for cooking and drinking by evening."


(Text borrowed from http://solreka.com/blog/solar-cooking/how-to-build-a-bamboo-solar-cooker/)