My husband and I were considering putting a wood stove in the basement to cut down on propane costs. Our basement is open and unfinished. There is no insulation between the basement and main floor. Our home is approx 1200 square feet. Our initial thoughts were, that with no insulation we should get some decent radiant heat through the floor. Do any of you have experience with this? (If money were not an issue I'd run it into our existing furnace, but that does not seem to be an option right now). I read recently that some do not recommend heating from an unfinished basement as a wood stove should be considered a space heater. Looking for opinions and experience from you guys.

Another option we have is to use the insert we have upstairs. Its a CRAFT STOVE that my grandparents used as sole heat for 30 years. But I am sure that the flue is unlined and wonder if the cost and hassle to line it would be too much.

Thanks in advance.

I would definitely go with a new insert. The cost would be about the same as putting a stove in the basement. And today's EPA rated inserts will surely be much more efficient than the old one. And they look much nicer too.

Enjoy the fire, don't hide it!

You will probably need to re-line but if you or your husband are reasonably handy this is not a hard thing to do and will save a lot of money over what most stove shops or chimney sweeps would charge. We put a small freestanding stove in our living room fireplace and love it. I did an insulated re-line with my stepfather and it was pretty easy, total cost of about $400. You could also possibly put a larger stove in your basement with your moderate house size but it would depend on your layout as to how effective that might be and would also likely need a re-line. That re-line would likely be a bit more than the upstairs re-line only because the length of the liner would be greater.