The Extended Life Stove project, a two-year project to extend the usable life of BURN Manufacturing’s (BMC) current production stove, has recently seen major progress.

Our last update described the prototype stoves containing various types of ceramics that were about to enter the durability program. While most of the stoves were entered promptly, one stove was kept aside for market research, as connecting with potential users of this product is crucial to its success. To this end, the BURN Manufacturing Market Research team performed a street survey of one of the stoves. In this study, the research team took the stove around town and gathered opinions from many people in the area. BMC team members asked survey participants to compare the current production stove with a prototype ceramic combustion chamber (pictured). The results of the study were encouraging; in fact, most people thought that the ceramic combustion chamber was a considerable improvement on the stove and expressed a willingness to pay slightly more for a stove with a longer lifespan than the current model.