flue-thermo/syphin

[sixroses]

Has anyone tried wrapping their flue with 3/4" copper pipe, with bottom of tank water into the bottom of spiral, exiting back to the bottom of the tank? Would there be a sufficient heat gain by thermo-syphin to be worth the effort? Seams that 300 degree stack temps would put some heat into the system?
Steve

 

[Fred61]

Interestingly enough, even if you do gather enough heat to thermosyphon, the cost of the hardware and effort will not be worth the result, but you may draw enough heat from the flue to negatively affect the draft. I've wrapped a wood stove in the past and did not gather enough heat to make it worthwhile but it did cool the stove enough so that I was getting a lousy burn.

 

[Duetech]

The Amish have a way to heat domestic water via their wood stoves using a thermo-siphoning method but from what I understand they just use a short section of pipe on their stove and the tank is elevated about two feet higher than the stove.