needed features
I've owned and used wood stoves for years. Right now I'm living where I don't want to be living, so I'm not investing in that sort of thing. All I have right now is a fireplace insert w/blower -- which are better than nothing.
Get a BIG stove. Once I had one that took four of us men to properly place. Oh, let me give some background: raised in Southern Appalachia; grandparents had coal furnace; from grammar school on, I maintained stoves fireplaces furnaces; cut firewood, shoveled coal, ... all that stuff. Been in country stores that had huge central coal stoves. Relatives who lived up in the mountains had the central huge stoves. You know, pot belly stoves, but these were 5 feet tall or more. I guess to young urban folk, I'd be a person who came from another world.
So what do you need as a base minimum? (I do not know the new things that are out there.)
> Your stove needs fire brick. I've seen iron glow red. Iron does NOT hold heat at all. Big stove, lot's a brick.
> Your stove should have a burn chamber and a second burn chamber above the first. Primary chamber (lower) is where you burn what you are gonna burn. Second chamber/baffle is for secondary burn of unburned gasses from the primary. The second chamber gets HOT -- it's almost too hot to cook on. Atop it, water drops turn into steaming bouncy balls. It will start grease fires. Be careful. Always wear thick gloves when around these. I've had all manner of things fly outa a stove at my face and hands. One log will give way and here comes a glowing top log at you.
> As others have told you, you've got two locking doors up front. Their gaskets should be asbestos. You'll have an adjustable port for each door. When learning to use this big boy, err to the side of too much air, then work your way into the realm of having logs glow all night. Initially, you'll have a lukewarm (maybe cold) stove in the morning, but you'll learn your stove and how much air/oxygen it needs. Too much air = ashes in the morning. Too little air = full size logs in the morning (not glowing at all).
> The flue has to be big even if you are not going to run a bunch of air through there normally. When starting that beast you want it to be able to roar like the gates of hell -- especially if you're going to burn lump coal. I wouldn't have a flue under eight inches in diameter. Roar to begin, then crank down your air vents until you get a steady breeze of intake. I will take a bit of time to get it just-so.
> Run the flue out your house through a masonry wall. If going through a frame wall, get a person who really, really knows what they are about in protecting walls. I've NEVER put in a stove whose flue went through a flammable wall. I was over-careful when going through brick or cinder block. Guess where a flue fire starts a house fire!
> If possible have a masonry liner to your masonry chimney. Between the liner and the outer chimney, fill with sand. If the inner liner cracks, sand will fall down into your clean-out and you will see it. You can have the chimney fixed (rather than have a house fire). Metal chimneys are much better today than they used to be; however, don't pull the outside air down between layers of the flue. If you do that, make sure you have your flue cleaned once or better yet twice a year like they do in Deutschland (by law). Bringing cold air down through there DOES heat it up, but what you have created is a fractionating column for creosote. Bring your outside air to the stove through a dedicated pipe.
> Cut your own wood if you can. Me, I used to live up against national forest land. Here in this city, I've cut down my own trees and made firewood of them. As a boy, I worked a short time in the Forestry Service -- got that Dept of Agriculture check and all. Back in those days they worked teenagers cutting scrub trees, but they didn't trust us with chain saws, no-sir, it was axes, crosscuts, and log tongs.
> Rick your wood over 50 ft from your house, your neighbor's house. Termites. Termites travel FAR.
> If you cheat and use a device to split your wood, Good. My back is shot. Cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat
> This is where I'll stop. There's all manner of reading out there. Avoid gimmicks. Go as primitive as possible, because there ain't gonna be fancy supplies if times go hard. Learn from old sh!ts, because they've gotten by in hard times already.