minimizing chimney heat loss

Hello all,

I am curious if there is a way to have near zero heat exit the chimney. My (proposed) chimney will be 20' long from the basement through the ground floor out the roof, dead center in the house. I propose radient fins off of the six to eight inch stack every foot attempting to extract all the heat leaving the stove before it exits the house. Do you know what else could be done?

thanks for your time.

near zero heat in a chimney will mean near zero draft. You need heat to overcome things like wind and negative pressure in homes. I would stick with stock stuff and buy a stove that you feel is most efficient. One more thing, the outside of class a chimney is not that hot, the first penetration through a combustable has to be class a chimney. so there woundt be much exchange there anyway.

Don't most methods of extracting more heat from flue gases just end up creating creosote?

Wouldn't a masonry heater (tuvliki? Russian? soapstone?) or one of its variants accomplish more or less what you are proposing? As I understand it you don't burn it continually, and the chimney functions as a chimney should while its burning, but once the fire has burned down and the masonry has accumulated a lot of heat the flue can be shut down.

Let that 15-20% go. Liks MSG said it's needed to establish adequate draft.

exactly. Put zero heat up the chimney and you have zero draft.