Hi Galadriel!
I'm going to poke just a tiny bit of fun at you here.

I'll do my best to make sure it comes across as friendly and helpful as I intend it to.
When I read your post, I was immediately reminded of a thing cooks sometimes do: oversubstituting. I've been asked, for example, "Taste this... I used nutmeg instead of cinnamon, almond milk instead of milk, squash instead of pumpkin, and we were out of sugar. I don't think I'll make this recipe again, it's not very good. What do you think?"
Sounds like your test stove circumstances are as far away from real stove circumstances as the vegan, sugarfree squash pie in my silly example above is from a regular pumpkin pie. Doesn't work because it's just not the same thing.
Good on you for noticing all the points of concern, so without being a
RMH expert, I'd say... fix them all and test it again!
You listed:
-some component might be cracked
-cold air
-windy air
-no exhaust flue
-wet wood
That's an awful lot of substitutions. Have you thought of rebuilding it in a testable indoor area (do you have a garage where the flue could stick out a window, perhaps?)? Might it even be worth the trouble to build a little
shelter around it? Just five pieces of plywood so that it really is inside a room? I heat with wood only, so I'm inclined to suspect the green wood as being the most problematic of all your problems, but I think they're ALL worth resolving. Then you'll have a test behind you that
should give confidence to you, your husband, and anybody you like.