Hobby guy, well I can say I've tried both the basement wood stove and the outside waterstove solutions. Here's my comments on both. First let me describe my setup. We have a walkout basement about 1500sqft and a single door to the first floor of about 2500sqft. Basement is poured concrete walls and 6" concrete floor.
I got the largest wood stove they make from Vermont Castings, the Duchwest model($1200). Easy to setup and operate, and boy did it heat the basement well. We would be in shorts down there and it would be 20 outside. Once it gets all that concrete warm( about 1day) it's very toasty. My doors are located close enough to the stove that I can bring a loader full of wood right to the door and unload it right next to the stove. A full load in the stove required 3-4 pieces of wood up to 24" long. This would burn at pretty much wide open for 8 hours and by leaving the basement door open it would provide heat for most of the first floor unless it got in the 10's or low 20's for extended period of time. We had a power outage one Christmas eve and day a few years ago and the only heat we had was from the stove and it stayed 58-60 degrees upstairs for most of the time(20 outside). Not toasty, but sweatshirt and pants were comfortable.
The pain/expence with that was keeping the chimney system cleaned. About twice a burning season, we'd have the chimney cleaned. Each year I'd replace most of the gaskets on the stove. But for the amount of wood, it really put out the heat, and if you've got 1500-2500sqft to heat, you can't beat it. It does produce a very dry heat, so as a by-product, out basement is very dry and warm compared to damp and cool.
Then last year I had the chance to pickup a great buy on a large used waterstove(Taylor). I located it about 100' from the house and had two heat exchangers installed for the first and second floor. It hold 800g of water and has a 2x2x3 firebox. It cost about $2500 to have the underground pipes, pumps and ductwork done.
Now, I just cut long pieces of logs, no splitting, green or dry, pine or hardwood and throw them into the stove once a day.
And it heats our domestic hot water too. I have free access to all the wood I need, just chainsaw work.
Since the stove is located out and away from the house there's never any smoke smell or ashes/dirt from the fire or the wood. No chimney cleaning, longer time between fill-ups.
It does used more wood than the woodstove, but the it's advantages outway that.
The waterstove is more monry upfront and if firewood supply is not an issue then in the longrun it would be the way to go. The woodstove is a very good solution too, we still fire it up when we use the basement, Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinners and parties.
Good luck and if you have any specific questions please let me know.
gary
