Chicken wire wrapping to enhance heat extraction?

Hi knowledgeable people!

I'm currently juggling ideas in my head for stove building. Just to be clear: I have no practical experience in this whatsoever, this is just my unqualified dreaming.

My question is this: Say that you wanted to build a "pseudo-RMH", ideally as clean-burning as a proper RMH. Say that you wanted to do it with a minimum of clay, bricks and similar materials, due to limited supply of these things as well as difficulties transporting them to the build site. Say you wanted to limit the usage by shrinking the size of the thermal mass (no massive cob bench) and by only building the "shell" of it from these materials, and then filling up with sand etc. This would limit the maximum length of the pipe running through the thermal mass, right? Say you wanted to max out the heat extraction into the thermal mass over this limited distance. Would it be possible to do this by wrapping the pipe in chicken net, copper wire or other random filamentous scrap metal you have lying around? My thinking is that this would effectively increase the surface area of the pipe, and thereby increase the rate of heat spread into the thermal mass (sand in this case). Does this sound right to you, or did I miss something?

Sorry if this has already been covered in another thread...

It is covered in another thread, or a podcast, about the "Pebble RMH" I think? The issue with sand is that it is a poor conductor of heat (read: insulator) because of all the tiny air spaces in between the grains. Having conductive fins embedded in the sand might help but won't get you the results that masonry and cob would.  

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Suppose I just have to get used to the thought of carrying lots and lots of clay uphill. The planned build site is about a hundred meters higher than the clay deposits... Thanks!

Hi Eino;
You may not need nearly as much clay as you are thinking.
There are ways to limit how much clay you will need.
However you will need three times more sand than clay... so you will be packing something up the hill.
I suggest a sled and winch (or a block and tackle) to ease the load.

When building your RMH core area, you will want fireclay/sand  to use in the high heat areas.
After your core, if  you build a "surround" for your mass (rather than a cob bench) you can use large rocks and plain dirt as a filler between with no clay needed.
A surround is typically brick but it really can be just about any material strong enough to retain your fill.
Sheet steel ,  concrete board, even wood can be used to retain your mass.

Your sand should be large sized  and uniform with no rocks/ debris.
In the US, I use #100 bags of commercial builders sand.
$11 a bag at the home depot store.