as you can see, a number of us heat or have heated from the basement, me included. I have had a VC downstairs and a couple of years ago got a PE summit. i also have a small 3FCB Jotul upstairs that i used when it got really cold. last year, because it was so mild, i pretty much used the upstairs jotul only. i went through way less wood. you have to burn pretty hard and long to get temps up to a comfortable level in the house when you burn downstairs and have it go through the house. you might consider buying a primary heater for upstairs and pick up a used one for downstairs. i'm going to try another winter with using the jotul as the primary. only problem is that it was originally purchased as a back up and you have to feed it more often.
cass
cass