What's the square footage of this room? Is the only way to distribute the heat from downstairs to the main level up the stairway? Never used a pellet stove before but have 40+ years experience with woodstoves and inserts.

Worth it in what way? Increased heat production? Ambiance in the room? Resale value?

The room is 20x14 if I leave the door open the heat would only be able to travel up the staircase. Worth it meaning benefits of using a pellet stove as opposed to fireplace for heating to rely less on oil. I guess ambiance as well as it's safer for kids to see the fire and not get injured in any way. Thanks

I don’t know cost comparisons of pellets vs oil.

Is your fireplace woodburning? We had a woodburning fireplace (with an insert) in a basement family room in one of our former homes. That sucker could put out the heat! Our teenage son’s bedroom was in the basement and he took charge of the fireplace and (free) firewood. It was great. When he moved out, we stopped using the fireplace because of the PITA factor.

An acquaintance recently mentioned looking into this and felt that pellets would be easier and cleaner than wood. However, he said that the price of the pellets and delivery has gone up to the point that the cost was not a benefit over cord wood on a BTU basis. That plus the cost and installation of new device resulted in a 'nope'. I have no pellet experience and have both a woodstove and a wood burning insert with a blower. Freestanding stoves give off the most heat. The benefit of pellets, to me, is the automatic feeding and I imagine they are less messy. Drawbacks of pellets for me would be dry storage of the bags delivered on pallets, and the inability to use it without electricity.

Seems like it would get really hot in your basement without some additional way to circulate the warm air from the stove to other areas in the house. Have you used the fireplace before?

I have used the fireplace twice since I owned the house in last 11 years since it's a basement and now a playroom for the kids.