By a show of hands...

I did it in the old house, 1800 sf & smoke dragon in the basement and all winter long, you could be in your undaroos 24/7. Now in the new house, 2500 sf and a Summit insert, I have my doubts, but this will be the first winter.....time will tell. Certainly wont use the amount of oil we have in the past 3 years and I am a fire bug, so it will be enjoyable for me.

I heat from the basement,I cheat and use the blower on the furnace and block off the upstairs air returns to move the warm air up stairs. I just added a timer to my furnace fan,I am looking forward to see if it will save any money on Electric bill.

I know all the "experts" say not to do it but it was my only choice. It works for a lot of people and I would rather do that than pay the oil man.

I wish that I had room upstairs for a wood stove but not in this house. Maybe If I ever get the chance to build my own house I will do it the right way.

I have an 30-NC in my finished basement (walkout, which helps insulate it a bit) of about 1200 square feet. The kitchen, all the the bedrooms, the living room, and the thermostat are all upstairs (another 1400 square feet). In outside temps above 20 to 25 F, the upstairs will stay at 68 F quite easily, and the downstairs will stay at 75 to 80. The stove is located almost completely opposite the stairs in a great room of about 25 x 30 ft., and for some I reason I get rather good convection in this house. In colder temps, the furnace will usually kick on once early in the morning when the thermostat is programmed to go from 62 to 65, which, if I recall correctly, is around 5:00 am. I am usually up at 6:00 am and tending the stove shortly thereafter. I can probably count on one hand the number of times the furnace kicked in other than first thing in the morning last winter. BTW, last winter was my first burning, so it is all I have to go by.

What makes it work for us is that we are flexible with the upstairs temp ranging from 65 to 68 during the day and the downstairs temps staying toasty at around 80. At night, we let the upstairs slowly to cool to no less than 60. Also, our house has good natural convection, which is not something you can count on in every house. Nor, based on others experiences, can you easily design or modify an existing structure to have good convection.


Just my 2 cents

No basement in my house, But can heat my ranch home no problem. 1300 sq feet. Did this with a small englander stove for two years. Got a newer Harman TL 300 to try out this winter. And after just the break in fires I will have no problem at all this winter.

BB's legacy lives on..... ;-)

I do.
It's a drafty old house too.
Heat only gets turned on if I am away for extra long periods of time, like a weekend or when the kids get home & they are cold. Even then they hardly ever turn heat on.
I cannot get my sons room warm, its always cold so that does get turned on when he goes to bed & off in the AM

When it is above 25 degrees outside my Jotul Castine can heat the upstairs of my 1952 poorly insulated 1000 SQ FT ranch pretty easily. When it drops below 25 I have to fire the stove too much to keep the upstairs warm. I use too much wood and it gets too hot in the basement. It can be done but unless the power goes out I won't.

My house is 2140sqft. All done from the basement. It gets cold enoufe here to say it works. The layout of the house is what makes the difference. On the coldest days I wouldnt mind to have a little stove upstairs. Our computer room is in the basement so this benefit's me. If ya know what I mean. ;-)