The smoke is poison, and unlike a furnace, gas fireplace, firebox, or wood stove, there is no heat exchanger, so you can't capture any of the heat out of the flue gasses.
It's counter-intuitive, I know. But this is why everybody congregated around the hearth in the days of fireplaces.
Seems like it could be fixed with a simple design change.
But I am not a fireplace lawyer so I won't profess to know.
Almost without comment. All I will say is that we have some friends in Germany living in the 'countryside' (as much as that's still a thing in densely populated Germany) that heat their main living area with one of these (way less elaborate design lol). My grandma had one of these sitting in the wall between kitchen (right next to the eating area) and the living room.
We had fireplace powered central heating -— radiators throughout the house linked to pipes behind the firebox. In the morning I’d wake up to ice on the inside of the windows, and by my teenage years it was my job to head downstairs and light the coal fire first thing in the morning. It worked well once the fire was up and running.
This was in the ‘90s btw, I’m not _that_ old.
Different places, different 'customs' i.e. systems we are used to. All have their pros and cons and sometimes it's just that we don't know that different systems exist.
Back in the day (i.e. 1700s) everyone heated with fireplaces. And many of them (e.g. 2nd floor ones) weren't that big.
How this works out in terms of net heat gained/lost will depend on the fireplace design, but, from what I hear, it's not uncommon for this to be a net-loss type of situation.
As a result, the room where the fireplace is will be warmer but the rest the house is typically colder.
... unless the extra peripheral heat loss freezes pipes.
AFAIK in europe having outside air intake in stove is mandated by law. You can not use it, but all newly built houses have outside intake if someone was planning on adding wood stove. You also need to have proper vent near your stove, so even if it uses inside air, it will typically get it through that. I have automatic pellet burning furnace in basement for normal heating needs (it starts automatically when needed, uses 3 temperature sensors on floors and in basement) and wood stove for "romantic" purposes, but when it's fired, it heats up almost whole house and pellet stove sees that no more heating is needed. I have lots of leftover wood from construction phase, so wood stove will pay itself back from reduced use of pellet.
As for losing heat through chimney - properly mounted and operated wood stove doesn't lose that much heat through chimney. Most of them have long enough steel pipe from stove to chimney, which reuses some heat from exhaust and ventilation channels in chimney, which are heating incoming air.
Then again Ben Franklin figured out how to make a fireplace that worked yet most don't.
[1] https://www.heatilator.com/owner-support/troubleshooting-and...
Why is that?
EDIT: Oh are you saying that the rate of heating provided by the fire is less than the overall rate of heat leaving the entire house?