I suppose it could be but I'm betting someone could use it for their home, but you would need to check it over good like any stove.
Does the top portion serve a purpose? Looks like a little oven for baking or cooking. Or maybe just to try and recapture some of the heat
By moving the baffle/baffle area and chimney exhaust out of the firebox they end up with a bigger firebox. The extra cast iron likely radiates a bit more heat and maybe the large baffle area helps with puff backing. It's probably a SCandia knock-off of the Jotul 118. If it were a Jotul the name would be on the door. There may have been others who made cast iron stoves of a similar design. The company in Taiwan that copied other's cast iron stoves actually did a pretty good job with their copying - their casting process was not the best and was fraught with cracking problems, especially when they were new.
I know some older stoves (called “tiered” stoves) used this design to, like you said” capture as much heat as possible. Some were like 6 feet tall.
Yeah there was another model that had a large horseshoe section on top. I would’ve bought it but I’m not chopping a hole in my fireplace to vent out. It was dang cool tho.
