Its called a Kachelofen in Germany and some of the houses we have looked at recently while house-hunting have them.  I don't know that they are much more effective than any other wood stove though.  Personally, I prefer natural gas, or fuel oil, what I really want is a basement reactor to heat and power my house.  That way i could be totally off the grid and not have to worry about energy bills at all.  When are they going to perfect cold fusion?  I will be one of the first customers when they do.

Nevermind getting rid of the radioactive waste produced from heating your home.  😮I think the benefit the man in the story felt was primarily in the lower cost of heating his house.  I can't imagine it would be more efficient than modern heating methods.  The tile of the stove retains heat but I wonder how well it would disperse it throughout the house.  But the medieval stove goes to show that such technology must have proven itself worthy in the absence of anything more advanced.  I think it's good for modern students to learn how previous generations knew a thing or two about engineering.