Wood burners only really heat one room though surely, unless a back boiler and radiator system is involved?
We have two houses on our property in the French Pyrenees, one heated with a pellet stove and the other with a woodstove called an “insert” in French. It sits in the original fireplace and has two tubes that go up the chimney and vent heat into the bedroom upstairs through a hole in the chimney brest and one in the attic. (In these old mountain houses people would sometimes just cut a hole in the upper story floorboards to let the heat through.) The pellet stove is in the renovated barn and heats the space well, except for the bedroom which is the room furthest away from the heat source. We like a cold bedroom so we don’t mind. We originally had gas central heating in the barn but we find the pellet stove heats the space more quickly. We’ve been here 30 years and in that time winters have become milder. Now we barely have any snow at our elevation (700m) whereas in the beginning there were regular dumps of snow. A pellet stove would not have been adequate back then, had they existed.
You must get some smoke or fumes from the vents in the chimney?
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No, there is also a bigger pipe that goes up the chimney to vent the smoke. The tubes bringing heat to the rooms are attached to the top of the stove but don’t open to the interior of the stove.
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Thanks for explaining. I’m pretty sure the ones in the UK have just a chimney to get rid of smoke.
Great thread @KChev
12 out of 14 of our UK sits so far had either open wood fires or burners.
None of them provided this level of information on using them.(which would have been very useful )
Fortunately they all had alternative heating as well !
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It’s two fold
- The draught up the chimney ‘draws’ the fire and keeps it alight.
- The draught vents the smoke away….
- Bedroom vents to an open chimney stack are usually closed/open depending on the wind direction and blowback.
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1&2: Yeah, thats standard principle on how fires work. Sadly, you need to let air into the room to do that, and cold air too. I remember the coal fires years ago 
3: if its a chimney, there is always the possibility of fumes/smoke getting into the room through the vents. The heatpipe previously mentioned sounds a better idea
I was inspired to write this post after seeing one by a sitter about struggling with wood heat. About 20 years ago we did some house exchanges. We had a family of Parisians here in the autumn and we showed them how to light the woodstove. (Because at the time we slept in the farmhouse and lived in the barn during the day.) They burned up all the kindling trying to light the fire and had no clue how to find more (though it’s just lying on the ground everywhere). So they camped out in the barn that had gas central heating. After that we vowed no more city people here outside of summer. Also, we have friends with a holiday rental that has a wood stove. They told me that when they show a couple how to light the stove, they make sure the woman is present because she will listen carefully to their instructions – the man thinks he knows what to do!
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The heat pipes are only possible in houses with straight chimneys but if like our old 450 year old house the chimney had a 45° kink in it…. it was a no-no.
Yes many people don’t realise you need draughts to enter the room where there’s a fire to create the draw so often people block all the draughts then can’t keep the fire alight.
You always had cold feet back in the days of open fires. Warm fires but cold feet 
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I avoid sits which offer wood stoves for heating as I was struggling with both my breathing (I’m not asthmatic or anything like that) when I used one - then I read this article from the British Heart Foundation.
Same here, i would avoid a sit with open fire/log burner (in cold weather). Not for any health implications, its just not for me
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Not as simple as central heating though 
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Pets love any heat, coal fire, gas fire, wood burner, sunshine even. They aren’t daft!
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We have done a few sits with wood burners. Unfortunately, I really suffer in these circumstances, as my lungs and asthma just flares up and stay inflamed for 7-10 days afterwards. My husband has no such trouble, but I know mine is genetic.
Our favourite ‘heated’ sit was in Scotland, in an old farm house with an Aga that was heated with oil. Always on, so nice to just pull the kettle on, or pop something in the oven at any time…and no asthma.
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