Options for basement stove

[Eapiel]

Hi,
First post here, glad to have found this forum. I am in the planning stages of finishing our basement, the 2 floors above are heated by forced air natural gas furnace. 3 of the ducts are rooted down into the basement but are basically inadequate at providing any real heat. Especially with a bare concrete floor down in the basement, for now.

I am considering one of these (broken link removed) backed up to a central wall. Right on the other side of that wall is a gas water heater that vents directly through our chimney. Directly upstairs is a traditional wood fireplace with its own pipe. The simplest way to heat the apprimately 1000 sq ft walkout basement (with 3 large sliding glass doors) is a gas stove sharing the same pipe as the hot water heater. I know sharing appliance pipe vents seems to be frowned upon in this forum despite both venting natural gas.

Other options are a wood or maybe a pellet stove. I can put a stove in another corner that is against an outside wall of the house, but will have to horizontally pipe outside to clear a second floor deck. Wood is an abundant source here in western MI.

Obviously I would prefer the first option for initial cost, simplicity and asthetic reasons. There is very little info on these B-vent type stoves on this forum. Basement runs about 10 degrees cooler than rest of house. My goal is be able to be able to warm it for occasional use in the winter.

BTW, if went and got a 100K BTU stove and cranked it, will it be able to significantly augment the heat upstairs? I temporarily installed a vent-free gas heater (don't worry it's not a keeper) and I can feel it provide some heat up the stairs to the main floor, which has no insulation from the basement. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[ourhouse]

Welcome to the fourm Eapiel
My stove is in an unfinshed basement and it works pretty good. It heats my basement and my first floor to about 74dgs and my second floor to around 64. I still have to run the heat on the 2nd floor. I have a Quadafire 4300 step top and it works great. There are a lot of great people here with a lot of Exp.
Hope this helps John

 

[Eapiel]

Thanks for the reply. After reading a few other posts on this forum, it seems my best course of action would be to replace my traditional wood fireplace on the main floor with a wood burning stove insert. As you can see from the attached pic, it is a pretty large room and with the vaulted ceilings it has been problematic to evenly heat the house here in Western Michigan. Unfortunately, this fall I refaced the traditional fireplace with marble and installed a new surround and oak mantle with a plasma mounted on the wall.
But I am still interested in the opinions of the board on the b-vent gas fireplace to heat just the basement without worrying about any affect on the top 2 levels.

 

[DiscoInferno]

Since your existing fireplace looks to be a prefab, you could replace it with an EPA-certified zero-clearance unit rather than install an insert. Generally costs a little more, but a little cleaner install. A relevant thread is here.

A ceiling fan will work wonders with high ceilings.