I have not considered putting a liner in the chimney. I really don't think it'll do any good. The bottleneck of the system is definitely the outlet in the kitchen. The cross sectional area of the chimney itself is much larger.

Re: Using Attic Heat
 

Cool project, BTW. Do you have a thread or posting about how your chimney was rendered obsolete for heating purposes?

Nope, no thread. But, when I bought the house, they had just redone the roof. At that time, they had the chimney cutoff below the roof so they wouldn't have to deal with it. I'm sure it hadn't been used in quite some time.

Attic heat
 

Ahhh, so perhaps you have a newer natural gas-fired furnace that vents out the side of the house? Could the water heater be vented so as well?

The chimney bricks could be re-purposed for other construction and the chimney column space reclaimed for living/storage. Still, the brick visible in the kitchen photo is rather handsome...

These comments are in no way intended to minimize what I see as a clever and cool project.

I've entertained side-venting my heating unit and water heater to reclaim the space now occupied by the chimney. Tongue-in-cheek, I tell my my wife we could turn the chimney into a clothes chute...:eek:

Hi Daox - I've enjoyed reading your little project and have been interested in trying something like this as well.
I would like to know how you are filtering the dusty attic air that's being blown into your house. Or is it not too bad?

So far, I haven't used any filters at all. I just checked the kitchen opening and there is no trace of dust on the damper.

Hey Daox, check this out...
 

Hey Daox,

Check this out:


Here is a paper that didn't exactly utilize attic heat, but pretty close...

Combined PV - Air Collector as Heat Pump Air Pre-heater

-AC_Hacker

Sounds like a great idea to me. I think if I were to take this to the next level, I'd probably use a heat pump to allow more heat to be moved. The fans work good for heating one room, but there is a lot more heat up there that could be harvested.

Im curious to know when your attic is at 90 f, what the outside temp. is at the time and if it was a totally sunny day ? Im in northern Florida and ive never measured my attic temp. but i strongly suspect that it is at least 90 f up there when its 60 f. out due to the intense suns rays beating on my black asphalt shingles. This winter ill pay closer attention to that and just may implement something like you have to take advantage of the accumulated heat up there for the living room area where i spend nearly all my waking hours. During the summer months, i wouldnt be surprised if my attic is at 130 f. at 6 pm which has me thinking I should throw a 300' coil of 3/4" Pex up there for shower water (cooling down with some cold water of course) .

The ambient temperature varied quite a bit. The attic temp was much more stable. I'd say the ambient temperature was anywhere from 40 to 60F.