Consider a pellet stove. Cleaner burning, low heat loss via chimney, and cleaner to use since you don't have to drag dirty wood in the house. Plus they are thermostatically controlled.

 

I don't want to store more pellets than I already have to, and I don't want to rely on electricity.

And I have lots of wood from my wooded lot, so it is free. And I don't think of wood as dirty, I don't mind it and l love moving wood, splitting wood, the whole thing.

 

Small wood stove and helping the upstairs in an emergency, like no power. Your probably dreaming. By the time you buy a decent pellet stove and get it installed. I believe you would be better off buying a generator and setting it up for emergency situations.

Do a Manual J for heating load and then see how many BTU's you need. Better to be realistic than to put something in and find it does not work like you imagined

 

Small wood stove and helping the upstairs in an emergency, like no power. Your probably dreaming. By the time you buy a decent pellet stove and get it installed. I believe you would be better off buying a generator and setting it up for emergency situations.

Do a Manual J for heating load and then see how many BTU's you need. Better to be realistic than to put something in and find it does not work like you imagined

What am I dreaming about? A small stove would heat the whole house above freezing even in the coldest month here no problem. It's no dream.

 

I use a Vermont Castings Aspen. I can load it at night and still have coals in the morning. We do get power outages where I live so it does double as a cooker.

 

That looks like a nice one and a nice size. And yes the cooker thing is also something I am interested in. Forgot to mention that, so thanks for saying that. I saw also that there is a tax credit up to $2000.

I've also been looking at the Morso 1410 B Squirrel stove. Seems like a good size.

 

That Vermont Castings Aspen is quite a big bigger than the Morso, it may heat that small space too hot. It's only about 375 square feet.

 

Even a small wood stove will throw off too much heat for a small basement apartment.

A small mini-split heatpump is a far better choice.

Not sure why upstairs you would want to keep heatpump off all the time and burn wood, a heatpump is such a great source of heat at least in mild to moderate weather. (mild only if it is a central conventional heatpump)

 

Yea wood stove doesn't seem like it would work well, but the idea is to have something that does not require electricity down there so that I can help deal with no electricity when there is an outage, and keep the pipes a little warmer. And I have lots of free wood here and like doing firewood work.

I run the pellet stove upstairs and keep the heat pump off because the previous owner did that and said that it would be far less costly than running the heat pump. I have never tested that theory but I'm running out of pellets so that may happen, but it's getting really warm here now so it won't be the same as testing the theory in the colder months.

 

It has a flue/chimney to the roof, and brick wall, all ready for some kind of small wood burning stove.

Make sure that the flue is rated for a wood stove and not something else.

 

We chose a Regency years ago that was available in 3 sizes, S,M,L. We took the small like you said to avoid overheating the one room it was intended for. New models today are better.
But to control my heat and overnight loading I vary the type of wood. Where you will be cutting your own that becomes easy. Last logs at night will be larger, round, and not that dry. Get up to a nice bed of coals and load it up for the morning.
Before the Small Regency we used a Dover and heated the whole house.
Be sure to talk to your insurance agent as burning wood can be unpopular with them.
Bud

 

In a basement if you burn wood, it is important have get a stove or insert that can take combustion/venting air from outside as basements are already under negative pressure and wood burning appliances can struggle to properly draft - even very efficient ones may use a lot of air.

 

You would have to match the heat output of the stove to the size of the apartment. Too small and it won't heat the space; too large and it will drive your tenant out of the room.

A single heat source in a single space won't heat the house if the temps get below freezing. That's why old houses had a stove in just about every room.

A wood stove gobbles up air that has to come from somewhere.

Is your tenant knowledgeable and willing to load and manage a wood burner?

Would your insurance company be on board? More and more, many won't insure them.

 

I question why it should be stoked all day without occupancy. Once he comes home, he could start it up and be comfortable in a few minutes.

 

Yea that's a good point.

 

My parents have an old fireplace insert with a blower. Probably quite inefficient. In the winter (40s), they use it as the only heat source for the house (60s). Leaving doors open, it heats the upper level nicely. They keep the dampers closed at night and pack it full. It's still quite warm in the morning. to make the upper level warm, the den has to be pretty toasty though.

 

Good to know. I rented a 3 bedroom rancher in college that had a wood stove in the basement. We never turned the air system on because it kept the house close to 80 degrees without it on, and that was with the basement door shut.

 

I think you meant CO, Carbon Monoxide.

 

No mention here yet of the chimney itself. Has the chimney been inspected by a mason? If it's older and has been out of service, that doesn't mean that it's serviceable. Start there.

Has been mentioned already- a stove that would heat your house will cook your tenant right out of a small apartment. It would have to be a small stove and would at best temper the rest of your house should power go out.

Usually I suggest a manual-j to insure proper equipment sizing. That'd be a waste of money here. Small space = small wood stove -and- a wood stove that drafts properly and has effective controlling (damper and vent aperture), can be purposely limited in its output.

I do not think this is a terrible idea, wood stoves are great. But I'd probably install a Mitsubishi H2i mini split. For that you'd need a manual-j.

 

No mention here yet of the chimney itself. Has the chimney been inspected by a mason? If it's older and has been out of service, that doesn't mean that it's serviceable. Start there.

Excellent point. My modular fireplace needed some fire brick work, chimney cap, and a few feet of chimney pipe. Quote was around $2k. Much I could do myself, but gives an idea. If it's a bare brick chimney, I'd want to put in a chimney pipe ($50 per foot).