Back in the 70s I went "back to the land" for a few years ("back" being a totally inappropriate word for someone raised on the concrete sidewalks of a NJ city). Built a house on 200 acres of Maine wilderness and heated it entirely with two wood stoves. One was a Norwegian cast iron model called Jotul. The other was made in Austria and I can't remember the name, but it was a white enameled-metal cookstove with a water jacket around the firebox. The water jacket fed into a hot water tank on the second floor. At first we used nothing but convection to move the water and had some problems, but after we got electricity, I hooked up a small pump, and it worked beautifully.
We used about 5 cords of wood a year. AE (after electricity) I installed some baseboard heaters for backup, but we never used them. The house was just under 3000 square feet and very well insulated, and we were never uncomforatable, even when the temp dropped below -25 F and froze the septic system.
Machinehead, Mainers have a saying that firewood warms you twice, once when you split it and once when you burn it. In a burst of youthful enthusiasm I split all the wood myself the first year. Had it delievered in 4 foot lengths, cut it to size to fit the two stoves (2 feet and 12 inches), split it with wedges and stacked it. Second year I had it cut to size before delivery. Third year onward, I rented a splitter. The trees on my property were mostly softwood, evergreens and poplar. So I had to buy firewood. Actually, it was more like barter. I paid something ridiculously low like $15 a cord in exchange for letting the logger hunt my land (we had a lot of deer and some bear).
You often hear the phrase "cozy up to the stove,"and it's absolutely accurate. There is a sense that the heat just reaches out and envelops you. The Jotul had doors that opened so that it could be used as a fireplace, and it was especially comforting to sit in front of it on a night when the wind was howling outside and you could hear the trees cracking in the cold.