Tradi tional househo ld fuels playa vital ro le in Ethiopia. They account for more than 93%rnof the households' energy need of the country which is mainly based on wood, du ng andrncrop residues. The most widely used stove is an open fi re that is believed to be highlyrninefficient. Today many of the people of Ethiopia are fac in g a deepening crisis of energyrnscarcity because local wood resources are depleted and even more di stant fo rests are cutrndown. The implications of thi s crisis extend beyond the supply of energy itself. This hasrnresul ted in mass ive deforestation , loss of agri cu ltu ral productivity, loss of bi odiversity,rnchange in hydrologic cycle, etc in many parts of the country. Based on these facts,rnex perimental and field survey methods have b~en employed in thi s study to investigaternthe thermal efficiency of frequently used charcoal stoves, fuel efficiency of both charcoalrnand inj era baking biomass stoves and fuel consumption pattern of the study area.rnThe experimental method employed water boiling and controlled cooking testrnapproaches. The water boili ng test was carried Ollt to investigate the thermal efficiency ofrncharcoal stoves and the controlled cooking test was carried out to assess the fuelrneffi ciency of both charcoal stoves and injera baking stoves. The results of the testrnindicated that there is a wide thermal efficiency gap among the charcoal stoves. Thernpotential fu el saving of the most efficient charcoal stove over the lowest efficientrncharcoal stove is about 39%. Simil arly the thermal efficiency gap is also observedrnamong the various types of Lakech stoves. The thermal efficiency gap between the mostrnefficient and the least e ffic ient stoves is nearl y 5 in percent. Concerning injera bakingrnstoves, Mirt stove has a better performance over three stones stove. The diffe rence inrnfuel wood consumption between them is about 70 gm per inj era. With the averagernnumber of injera baked per session in the study area, and if Mirt stove is to berndi sseminated to 50% of the households, then it is estimated that about 273 .2 hectare ofrnforest cover would be saved every year.rnHousehold survey was callÂ·ied out in order to assess the utili zation frequency of noninjerarnbaking stoves. preferences of households for various types of Lakech sto ve, Fuelconsumption patterns of the study area, Mirt stove production level and Factorsrncontrolling the di ssemination of Mirt stove. From the survey result it is observed thatrnurban households of th e study area have three to four types of non-inj era cooking stoves.rnThe most widely used ones are kerosene stoves and Lakech stoves. Among the variousrntypes of Lakech , Lakech Without Pan Seat is widely used by the community. The mainrnreasons for th eir preferences are fuel saving and speed in the order of importance.rnHowever, the reasons given by the community contradicts the experimental finding. Thernexperimental results indicate that Lakech Without Pan Seat is the lowest thermal efficientrnstove compared to the others. Th is use of thermally inefficient use of ari sen from the lackrnof awareness among the society about the thermal efficiency of the stoves.rnIn the study area, currentl y, Mi rt stove is produced by three trai ned local producers. Itrnhas been observed that the stove has a high economic benefit for the producers as well asrnfor the customers. The community in the study area has adequate awareness about thernstove. The main source of their awareness was information obtained from fri ends andrnrelati ves. However, sti ll the coverage of the stove is very low. It is about 1.5% in ruralrnareas and 5.6% in the urban areas. The main reasons are lack of proper kitchens in thernurban area and unavail ability of the stove in the rural areas. The major factor for thernunavail ability of the stove in rural areas is probably to weakness in the di sseminationrnability of the responsible organi zations.rnThe most frequently used fu el types for non-injera cooki ng acti vities in the urban areasrnare kerosene, charcoal and electri city. But due to ri sing price of kerosene and highrnincrement in electric tariff, people in the study area have started to shift to biomass fuelrnwhi ch could inten sify environmental problems. Concerning injera baking, the mostrnwidely used fu el type both in the urban and in the rural areas is dung whi ch is supposedrnto be used for the restoration of soil fertility.