Thanks, Mark. I was really having my doubts for a while ("spent all this money to build a one room cabin").
The simple answer re: smoke and chimney is "through a pipe". The heater is a contraflow (aka fountain, or Finnish heater) design, where the flames and smoke go up the center through the oven then down channels in each side, warming the entire mass. The smoke channels come together in a manifold which runs under the door in the first picture, so the chimney can be at either side or at the back if you don't have a second door for see-through. The chimney uses an 8" ID round flue, and the same flue pipe is extended to poke into the side of the heater. The result is a toasty-warm bench area over the horizontal flue.
That's the easy part. What had me more worried was "what makes the smoke go through the horizontal flue when you are starting the thing up ?". I figured it would be easy to light once the masonry was warm from a previous fire but a pain getting started -- I had visions of holding a flaming torch through the clean-out door at the base of the chimney to get a draft going.
In actual fact it was much easier. The trick is that the chimney is inside the house, so both the chimney and the heater core are "warmer than the outside" even before a fire is lit. I stacked up a few small pieces of wood in the firebox, put some newspaper and kindling on top, lit the newspaper and "presto" a good strong draft right from the start.
There is an electrically operated damper with a wall switch that provides air through a duct in the basement -- the air then runs through both door frames for preheating and air wash over the glass. If you look closely on the left side of the chimney you can see a pull chain which opens and closes a rooftop damper on top of the chimney. You basically open both dampers, light a fire, then when the fire has burned out you close both dampers to keep the warmth inside the heater and chimney.
I think it is really cool, but then I *am* easily amused
