How to Increase the Efficiency of the Seebeck Effect

Position your wood stove as close to the outdoors as possible. This would work best if one side of your cast-iron wood stove was exposed to the outdoors, with the remaining five sides indoors.

Cover the outside surface of your iron stove with as many TEGs (thermoelectric generators/modules) as you have access to. Depending on the type of modules you have access to, you will need to mount them so that one side of the modules is flush and makes good contact with the iron side of your stove.

Wire together the modules in series to increase the voltage. This means you will need to connect the positive output wire on one module to the negative terminal on the module next to it, and so on. The power from the entire array should be outputted through the negative terminal on the first module, and the positive terminal on the last module.

Light the stove and allow it to build up heat. The dramatic differentiation of heat between the hot-iron surface the TEGs are mounted to, combined with the cold outside surface of the opposite side of the TEG modules, will allow for the maximum efficiency of the modules to be attained more easily, as it is differentiation in temperature that produces the electric charge.

Test and monitor output voltages with a multimeter. Connect the red positive lead from the meter to the positive output terminal from the TEG array, and the black negative probe from the meter to the negative output terminal from the TEG array. Turn the selector dial on your meter to measure DC voltage, and note the efficiency of the array's output with regard to ambient outdoor temperatures.