Fireplace or Wood stove

Can anyone give me some advice. We are thinking of installing a fireplace or wood stove in our basement. I'm not sure though it can be done. If we go with a fireplace, what would be a good way to route the flue (sp?)
Also, with a wood stove, do they make any that won't make your clothes or home smell "smokey?"
Thanks for all your help,
Joe

A wood stove is more effective than a fireplace. If you want either in a basement, unless it's a large area,it will be very warm or uncomfortable.
A quality wood stove is air tight,so no worry about long lasting smells.

The "flue" can exit the house from the basement and then run up past the roof being secured to the house with brackets.

[Dave in Ohio]

What are you going to use this for, looks or heat. A fireplace is nice to relax by but it sucks up the wood and most of the heat is lost out the flue, a woodstove you may be able to leave the doors open and watch the fire, but then it is more efficient and will save you on the amount of wood you would use, but then again it depends on the wood burner. My dad had a double barrel wood burner and heat the whole house with one in the basement, this seems to be a cheap yet efficient way to go. If you opt for the fireplace they have free standing ones on the market, to me that would be more practical as you would have a 360 degree view of the fire and would radiate heat out all sides compare to one that only did half. It all comes down to how much you want to spend and what you are going to use it for, for looks-fireplace, for heat-woodstove, then there is always the outside wood furnace which even keeps the dirt of the wood chips out of the house and is safer cause if you have an uncontrolled fire it will only hurt your furnace not burn down your house, plus you can burn it different and save even more firewood. Which sells for anywhere from$75 to 200 a cord for split hardwood, depends on where you are at.
Dave

[MorrisonCorner]

"Fireplace" to me means "stone chimney and hearth" which I think might be tricky to incorporate into an existing basement. A woodstove, especially a modern cast iron or soapstone number with clean burning technology would give you both the looks, and pump out some serious heat. For perspective though, when we moved into the farmhouse it was "heated" with a fireplace. And the week we moved in it was -10. We were throwing logs into the fireplace as fast as we could and 3' from the front of the fire it was cool. At the edge of the room it was frankly cold. In the rest of the house it was genuinely freezing. We bought a soapstone stove that week and popped it into what used to be, I'm sure, a lovely, romantic, but utterly worthless, fireplace. The stove heats the first floor nicely (although we've never been able to heat the second).

[RenieB]

If you want heat you really should go for a stove. We have a Vermont Castings stove that is air tight and we can see the flame through the glass or we can take the stove door off and put on the fireplace insert. We have never used the insert as we use the stove for the heat. If you do not have experience with woodstoves or a fireplace, I would get some books and read up on them and safety issues. When we first had a wood stove I was as ignorant as could be but I knew I was ignorant about heating with wood so I read everything I could about safe installation. We also had an old wood kitchen range, and that was a learning process to learn how to use it properly. I have found that every stove has their own unigue features and ways of using them. My dh can't get the stove started, he thinks he has everything just right and the wood won't take. I on the other hand know how my stove wants to be started and I never have problems, so I am the one who starts the stove. Just give me some old newspaper, egg cartons and kindeling and we are in business. Somebody is always asking me why I save the egg cartons. I want heat in the winter.

RenieB