A single rising chimney is inefficient because the smoke does not have time delivery the heat to the chimney walls.
Instead make a wrinkly chimney that goes up and down inside a heat absorbing (usually heavy) material. :-) Like this:
KAKELUGN - SCANDINAVIAN STOVES - vkvvisuals.com/blog
The smoke/warm air goes up, down on both sides, up on both sides and merges into the chimney. The outside is usually glaced ceramic tiles, on the inside brick and clay mortar. The clay mortar is necessary because when the stove gets warm, and its a lot of heat stored in the stove which can weigh up to 2000 pounds, the stove expands, an inch our so in circumference. The glaced tiles do not expand, but the space between them do. If normal mortar is used, the stove will crack. Its non-trivial to build such a stove.
However there is a modern version of this stove which is brilliant. Imagine a standing cylinder, in the bottom, there is a fireplace, then you create a chimney of normal metal pipes, going up and down in the cylinder. Then you fill the cylinder with sand! Presto, a heat absorbing stove.
Here is a description from a newspaper:
http://www.dn.se/bostad/varmande-hemmabygge-med-hog-mysfaktor/
and here is the translation in English:
