Fireplaces create a wonderful soft warmth. Unless you live in some huge castle or it’s completely blowing through your house, warming the house with fireplaces is great. Even when there are some small drafts here and there in the house. Just wear warm socks as the floors are usually quite cool despite the room being toasty from the heat.

Then you tend the fire for some time, long enough for the fire to properly warm all the stone around it. (Even in wooden houses, the central chimney would be rather thick at the bottom where the fireplaces are, so the stones store heat during the night.)

You stoke the coals and then when it’s just red coals and no more burning, you can shut down the chimney, so the rest of the heat stays in.

It slowly dissipates through the night. (But you won’t get carbon monoxide poisoning, which is why it’s important to have the chimney open while there’s actual fire.) It might get a bit cool around the morning hours, but sleeping in the cool is actually pretty decent.

Waking up in the cold is a bitch though.

We had uhm… two chimneys and six fireplaces in the house I (mostly) grew up in. Was built in the 30’s.