I understand that with a traditional fireplace, most of the heat is lost through the chimney and you have to be very close to it to feel much heat. A wood stove or insert performs much better. However, I’m curious how people stayed warm enough in a house. It would seem that everywhere besides being near the fireplace would be freezing. I guess fireplaces were mostly meant to locally heat people near the fireplace, and not so much that the fireplace is a central heat source. That would explain why people often had a fireplace in every room. Just light the fireplace that you will be near for most of the time, etc. rather than heat the whole house. Just curious since you often hear “warm by the fireplace”.
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Average home size in the US in 1945 was 700 square feet. Before that it was smaller.
Most homes in that era were barely larger than one room, and fireplaces pretty good at heating one room. But fireplaces also quickly gave way to things like the Franklin stove. Those modifications to fireplaces made them twice as efficient. A 19th century iron stove could easily heat a whole house as it was more efficient yet. In the 80s I lived in a house that was almost exclusively heated by a cast iron wood burning stove and even on the coldest days a log could keep the house heated for about an hour (you’d load 8-12 in there and it’d be good for an evening).
And trees are pretty efficient at making more trees, so as long as you had a forest and didn’t overharvest it, you were good forever.
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