Our house was built in 1956. We have a sturdy brick chimney that has a clean out in the basement. The propane powered furnace and propane powered water heater were both vented into it. We switched to an electric, tankless water heater and electric, oil filled radiators for heat because of cost effectiveness. The chimney is completely walled over in rest of the house and runs between 3 closets. I suspect they originally used wood heat, because of the age of the house and because I have never found any coal clinkers. I have close to 5 acres of woods and would like to put in a wood stove, probably in the basement.

Who should I have inspect the chimney to see if it is suitable for a wood stove?

Is it best to use stove pipe inside of a chimney?

What should I expect the cost of inspection to. be?

We have a 1 story house with a basement under everywhere except the garage and mud room. Would heating the basement hot be enough to warm the floor above?

Thanks,
Keith

Might ask your county building inspector or better yet the state fire marshal's office.

My uncle is a chimney cleaner and does this sort of thing. I don't know much about it or the cost but maybe Google chimney cleaner in Google and see what comes up

I know just enough to leave chimneys alone. Snatch the critter out and refer anything else out. But I would guess the suggestion would be to run a metal flue up it for a woodstove that or a full integrity inspection or both.

a certified Mason or chimney cleaner could inspect and tell you if all of your chimney flue tiles are in good shape and give you a clean bill of health on the chimney

or tell you what it needs to get up to a good place

also this is about the one place I actually paid someone else to hook up my stove because my insurance company was not going to raise my rates IF a certified chimney tech installed the stove
best 500 dollars on an install I ever spent.
I went with a new metal double or triple wall all new installation because it let me put the stove where I wanted and my masonry chimney was not up to the task of a wood stove.

the metal chimneys clean easily also with less to go wrong

my grandfather a master mason put in some of the most elaborate fancy chimneys in SE WI and when I asked him what I should put it he said what is in my living room and has been almost your entire life?
a metal chimney , he said yes they work and I don't spend my time unpaid working on them because 1-2 cleanings a year and it has been good for 30+ years
he sold that house in 2019 and it was still good at 40 years

my metal chimney is a once a year cleaning takes 30 minutes and nothing else

they heat up faster so they draft better you have less concern about about heating them up too fast and cracking something and as strait up as you can go is ideal

Only if you're begging for trouble! Find a chimney cleaner/inspector that doesn't have authority to condemn the system out of hand till you've had a chance to do repairs.

keith,,,id check with your insurance company first, about the installation of a wood stove, and then ask them for a referral to someone they may already work with. might save alot of hassle down the road.

I did HVAC work for 40+ years. we installed a lot of Stainless Steel chimney liners and wood stoves. Check with some local Heating contractors and see if any of them do liners.