Kia Ora, Welcome to Solar Ovens New Zealand

Vacuumed Glass Tubes

The vacuumed glass tubes are fairly compact and accordingly allow only for small amounts to be cooked.

For hiking purposes the compact ones are surely a good alternative to any other solar cooking options.

Based on the feedback we read, the glass tubes are difficult to clean and delicate. Some reported that they experienced leakage or even breaking issues.

Price range is between $300 to around $2,100*.

Parabolic Mirrors

Parabolic mirrors look a bit flimsy to us, as they might be easily toppled by a few stronger blows. Not easy to unfold and set-up nor to adjust to the changing direction of the sun, especially with a bigger and heavier pot.

These can generate the most heat at the focal point but you will have to keep adjusting them more often to keep the focus exactly on the pot. Besides this you will not have the advantage of trapping the heat even if the sun is not fully directed onto the pot. Likewise, no open roasts or backed overs are easily possible with this cooking style.

Due to the focused energy beam, burning the food will be a concern and will require you to keep regular watch. On the other hand this will be ideal method to boil water quickly.

Price range is between $800 to around $4,300*.

Box style Solar ovens

All box style ovens are in principle made the same way:

• having a thicker wall to keep the heat
• reflective materials on the inner four sides to redirect the sun and heat to the cooking area
• a lid to trap the heat
• minimum one mirror reflector to redirect the sun light into the cooking area.

We looked at a variety of DIY project videos like a carton box based one gluing aluminium foil on to the inside and outside reflectors. Then a plastic or thin glass lid is attached as a heat trap. Just from watching it is clear that they would not last long. Neither would they be able to actually retain much of the heat for long, nor withstand moisture and spills over time.

The wooden DIY ones are more sturdy when done properly, but also way more heavy. These require certain skills, lot of materials and tools. Not everyone has a suitable pieces of glass or metal base laying around. One has to hunt for the right parts to make it work, which can be time consuming, tedious and a trial/error experiment.

Many of the box style ovens are made of plastic and some of these are sold at a price beyond $2,000*.

We eventually found the video below about unboxing of the SunTaste box style solar oven. That impressed us so much that we became the distributor for New Zealand, please click here https://solar-ovens.nz/products/ for more information.