Woodstove in the basement?

[tiber]

Checking the SEARCH page shows it's "been discussed to death" but really I can't find any kind of definitive guide.

I've got an 1800SF house. We've got a basement, a first floor with a very open floorplan, and a second floor with a standard straight hallway-and-rooms layout.

The wife won't let me kill the fireplace for an insert but she has noticed the second floor is much warmer than the first with the heat on. If there was a smiley with his eyes rolling I'd post it. We've been seeing mid 30s here in my neck of the PA woods at nighttime.

As the house was built in the 60s, we have zero insulation between the basement and first floor. The basement itself has zero insulation also. It won't break my heart (or the bank) to buy huge styrofoam sheets and put them up. But, I was wondering what other people did (if other people have). Putting in vents to the basement would be cheap and easy, but I was thinking of simply installing a door with vents on it. Hot air rises, and a good portion of it should go straight up through the uninsulated floors and heat my house. What doesn't should come through the vented door to the basement.

Anyone tried similar on a similar scale?

 

[Wet1]

Heating from the basement can work, but it takes some proper prep work and thought. You'll certainly want to insulate the basement, if not, don't bother trying to heat the house from down there. You'll want to use hard board foam insulation (not styrofoam), but for it to meet code, it needs to be covered properly (Sheetrock). There are other ways to do it, but this is often the cheapest and easiest. You'll also want to locate the stove as close to the stairwell as possible so the heat can easily migrate upstairs. Using active air management is often very beneficial, especially with cold air return(s).

 

[tiber]

Using active air management is often very beneficial, especially with cold air return(s).

I'm not ENTIRELY sure what the PA code is here. (Do you live in PA?)

But anyway, we have a boiler, which pushes around hot water. we do not have a forced air system, nor was I particularly interested in putting one in. I did, however, get the idea that it might be nice to put registers over the doors themselves. The doors go up to the ceiling but since something like this would be coming up from the basement, putting registers over the doors to connect room-to-room at the ceiling height seemed like The Right Idea.

 

[ProjectX]

I am finishing a basement install here

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/42676/

Do a search for cutting floor vents here and put your reading glasses on lol. I didn't cut any vents in the floor what i did is put an 6" inline fan in my hot air duct but not to suck the heat out of the stove room it blows the cool air from the floor vents in the rooms above. I wired a duct-stat and mounted it to the ceiling so the inline fan turns on when the room hits about 78f.