I am not an engineer and I am incompetent and challenged in all matters of mechanics. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me. But, I do understand the thermostat. You know, the thing that sits on the wall and controls the temperature. Great minds have figured it out and while I do not understand the mechanics (coils of dissimilar metal and thermistors or something) I do understand the practical application. With a wood stove you were always anticipating ans guessing. If the night was going to be bitterly cold you would pile more wood in the stove, the idea being that this would give you more heat. This worked but had short comings. If the night was warmer than anticipated, you would sweat and waste wood. If the night was super cold but you fell into a deep sleep the house would be cold when you finally woke up and had to walk on an icy floor to get the fire going.
The modern thermostat solved all of that. You would set the temperature, sometime in October, to say 20 degrees C (maybe even the more politically correct 18 C) and forget it until May. Engineers have designed a system that was fool proof. Warm spells in November, Arctic Blasts in January, were no problem. All was 20 degrees in the home, and flannel jammies were something to save for the yurt in Algonquin Park.
My mother never bought this. On cold nights she always cranked up the heat and made me put on a sweater. I am not talking about my childhood. I am talking about me visiting her as a man in his forties . If the temperature hit below below minus twenty, my mother would crank up the thermostat and make me, her middle aged son bundle up.

The cats and beagle are the same, on cold nights they do insist the fire place is on and huddle by it, even thought the living room temperature is the same all winter. And , more than a decade after my mother's passing I too now like to huddle by the fireplace on a cold winter's eve. A tummy full of food, cats, and the singular beagle and I all warming by the fire. Who would have thought that it has taken all of these years to figure out the engineers were wrong and my mom was right?