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They sure do when the power goes out in the winter and the little blowers and feed augers quit working !.......:o)

I have had a wood stove , small one with a glass faced door in my home everywhere I was stationed (even there off speedway at DM) as a backup for HVAC or too augment the HVAC.

We keep about 6 face cords of hickory stored and ready these days .

One of the stoves that gets used alot around here are the ones that burn dry feed corn. Same principal as the pellet stoves yet they are ......corny !

That's the impression I was under....that they don't operate very well with NO power! That rather reduces the overall effectiveness in a situation where conditions are such that power may be out. If your heating system is dependent on commercially available power, then the "weakest link" that we try to compensate for is still the weakest link!

This is the reason we didn't buy one of those nice, outdoor wood burning units. They ARE nice! I've got friends who have them and they can't say enough good about their particular model. But they had pumps installed which are dependent on 120VAC! I pointed out that they "say" that they heat with wood (and they do!), but that when the power goes out, their heating systems are INOPERATIVE! They have generators, but I remind them that their heating supply is limited to the run time of the generator.

Before we invested in wood heat (by this, I mean GOOD chain saws, a wood splitter, and the stove), we agreed to keep it SIMPLE. We did consider an outdoor unit, and I had already priced a stand alone 120W PV (Solar) unit to power a D.C. pump. But we opted to keep it SIMPLE. So as it stands, very little prevents us from heating in the winter. If the power goes out, we do lose ceiling fans, and air doesn't move as much and we get "cold spots" in the house. But pipes don't freeze, and everybody "generally" stays warm. We can cook on the stove as well.

I like technology a lot. :-) But when it comes to things such as shelter from elements and the ability to heat such shelter, we believe that a philosophy of keeping it simple is best.