Can You Have A Wood Burning Stove In A Bedroom?

You may only install a wood burning stove in sleeping quarters if your local jurisdiction and the stove manufacturer allow it.

Finding out whether a stove you’re looking for is allowed to be fit in such place is the first thing to do.

Why are manufacturers leery? There is extra safety concerns to take care of when operating a wood stove in such quarters.

Makes sense, considering you are thinking of sleeping in the same small room in which an appliance can emit dangerous CO if not set up correctly.

Once that is taken care of, you may refer to your local building department for the actual yes or no answer.

Forgot to mention, an insurance company may want to know that too. Good luck.

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Having said that, even if you were able to put one there, you’d want to think twice if this is really as good of an idea as it might sound at first. Let me explain.

Reasons not to do it

You might end up cooking yourself out

The average bedroom size is 132 square feet (12.3 m2). A standard stove will simply be too much.

This is not to say that wood stoves for even such small spaces don’t exist – though they may not look as “romantic” as you please.

But even then, things aren’t as easy. Bedrooms are not that cold to begin with, well, in sense that you are under the covers.

So even if you do end up picking a stove that seemingly is just the right fit, you might end up feeling too warm anyway.

Tracks in debris

I assume your bedroom is upstairs, as otherwise I don’t think you would have the same problem I’m tackling in this blog post.

When you place a wood burning stove, if it’s legal of course, in an upstairs bedroom, you will have to figure out a way of how to get firewood down there. And let me tell you, there is no pretty way to do it.

You will have a hard time keeping dirt, bark and any wood related stuff from getting everywhere. And if you end up bringing more of it for later and keep it close by (I do not suggest that), your bedroom might become nothing short of bug party.

And then there is the dust issue. Cleaning ash and getting it all over the room? I don’t like this.

It’s going to end up being a bit bright and noisy in there

Nice to look at when looking at it, not as much when trying to fall asleep.

Wood stoves flicker and pop during a burn, that’s what they do. And you could imagine that becoming rather distracting when all you want is a little shut-eye.

Essentially you’ll end up feeling like in a room with a light bulb that is going out. Yeah, that’d be a long night for me.

It’s expensive

The stove, the flue system, the everything else that needs to be done will round up to a nice sum.

All of that just to heat a bedroom? That sounds like too much for me.

Alrighty then, any alternatives?

A gas stove might be just the solution for you, that is, if you have a constant supply of gas.

But then again, even a gas stove has laws and regulations you have to follow – it’s just that in some cases, installing one would be more of a possibility than a plain ol’ wood stove. And there is the benefit of not having to lug up any wood, too.

But if it were me, I’d look into heating with electricity. Something like a space heater or an oil filled radiator (this one from Amazon will work).

It’ll cost nothing compared to a wood stove install, though running it won’t be free. Be smart about it and it should work out great.

Or, an electric blanket works too if the problem is only about you feeling cold in bed. But it won’t add much to the room heating per se.

Maybe try this

If you are just burning with the desire of falling asleep in a romantic fire staring way, why not try “camping” in front of the stove you already have? I’m serious.

That way you can figure out whether it’s your cup or tea or no. And if it does end up possible to put one upstairs, at least now you will know what you’re getting into.