If fireplaces are so inefficient, how did people manage when they were the only heat source in the home?

Question

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”.

In: Technology

Answer 1

I visited some Eastern European countries. People would basically sleep on top of big iron stoves covered in tiles.

Answer 2

For a very large percentage of people, their homes were much smaller. Everyone sleeping in the same space (with maybe a cow or two) would warm up a small cabin effectively with only a small fire.

People can huddle in a cave carved out of snow and survive cold temps. As long as it is small enough with a little ventilation.

Answer 3

Two main contributing factors.

Wood burning stoves and other wood powered heat sources such as fireplaces would typically be placed one per room. Most instances this was because the whole house was one room.

Even if you’re only getting 15 to 20% of the heat into the actual dwelling you’re still talking about the heat off of something that is burning at a few hundred degrees. Yeah it sucks from a large scale energy conservation point of view but it keeps your house pretty toasty, pretty easy.

I have a fireplace in my double-wide trailer and while I don’t use it because I don’t want to pay for the firewood it has been used and it is actually quite capable of keeping darn near the whole trailer warm even in 17° weather.

If you close the bedroom doors and just allow it to heed the living room dining room and kitchen it’ll keep that very comfortably warm in 17° weather.