Engineer's compassion leads to new low-cost invention against mountain cold

Doubling as a stove and a water heater, Kiều's system is also designed for faster cooking and fewer CO2 emissions. — Photo tienphong.vn

QUẢNG NAM — Driven by his own travel experiences and compassion for underprivileged communities, Dương Quang Kiều has successfully invented an effective stove-heater system that ensures hot water for local people in the harsh climate in the mountainous areas.

Kiều, a 43-year-old engineer from Quảng Nam Province, came up with the idea for a wood-stove water heater system from his trips with friends to the Ngọc Linh ginseng-growing area in Nam Trà My District in 2019.

Surrounded by woods and at 1,500m above sea level, temperatures in the region are always low and limited living conditions mean little hot water available for daily use.

Local residents often take water directly from the cold natural streams, and the lack of sunlight in the winter means solar power systems cannot function properly.

Kiều and his friends had an ‘unforgettable’ experience themselves, bathing in freezing cold water when they were travelling in the area.

After returning to the city, Kiều felt the urge to come up with a solution to ensure hot water for local residents and children, especially in the winter months.

He spent weekends working on his idea for a water heater system, using his skills and background as a graduate of HCM City University of Technology and Education and an automation engineer at a Quảng Nam-based chip manufacturer.

“I thought a lot about how to help them address this issue at the lowest possible cost,” Kiều told Tiền Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

“The only source of heat in this mountainous area is wood burners. This led to the idea of a system that can generate and store hot water using excess heat from cooking on a traditional wood stove, based on the principles of convective heat transfer,” he explained.

This system, named T-Sona, consists of a hollow wood stove to store water and an insulated water tank, which are connected with heat-resistant pipes.

During cooking, excess heat from the woodfire transfers to the stove containing water. Then, thermal convection causes the water at the top to move up the pipe to the storage tank, which can keep the water hot for about three days.

The system is also equipped with a three-stage filter to ensure clean water for human consumption.

The stove-heater is designed to function without electricity, while the closed system also optimises the use of firewood, therefore reducing CO2 emissions and allowing for faster cooking.

The system is on trial at the Ngọc Linh ginseng-growing area in Nam Trà My. As of last year, four of the improved stove-heater systems were installed free of charge in the locality, including in two schools in Lăng Lương and Răng Chuỗi villages.

Trà Thị Thu, a teacher at Răng Chuỗi school, said that this is an incredibly meaningful gift for teachers and students in this mountainous area, particularly during the winter or cold, rainy weather.

“The stove-heater speeds up cooking and, most importantly, ensures a stable source of hot water for the students,” said Thu.

Kiều does not plan to commercialise the product. Because of economic constraints that prevent donations, he works with volunteer groups to offer the stove-heater at the lowest price possible, enough to cover raw materials, transport and installation.

The system costs VNĐ7.5 million (US$300) for the 75-litre model and VNĐ11.5 million ($460) for the 150-litre model and can last for approximately 20 years.

Kiều’s invention won the highest prize at Quảng Nam’s Technical Innovation Competition in 2023, and was highly praised for its focus on serving the underprivileged communities in the mountainous areas. — VNS