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Yes, a wood stove can go in a basement. It needs a listed chimney that clears the roof, the right clearances around the stove and pipe, and your local building department's sign-off.

Creosote buildup is what wood smoke leaves behind when it cools before reaching the top of the flue. What starts as soft soot you can brush ends as a hard black glaze that burns.

Chimney draft problems come down to one thing: the chimney is not pulling hard enough, so smoke takes the easy way back into the room. The cause is nearly always one of six: too short, the wrong size, too cold, too many turns, a house short of air, or a blocked top.

A chimney installation is three parts in a fixed order: stove pipe inside the room, insulated Class A chimney through the building, a termination above the roof. Decide the route first and the parts list and the height both follow from it.

Pick the flashing by roof pitch, not by pipe brand. Measure the pitch, match the flashing band to it, and treat the flashing, storm collar and radiation shield as one set rather than three separate buys.

A wood stove installation normally uses one adapter at the stove collar and another where the connector pipe meets the Class A chimney. Match each fitting to the pipe system and the stove's 6- or 8-inch collar.

In short: Match the elbow to your flue collar diameter, 6 inch or 8 inch, then pick 45 degrees to step around an obstruction and 90 degrees to turn flat into a wall.

Quick answer: A prefabricated metal Class A chimney costs $100 to $150 per foot installed, against $150 to $200 per foot for masonry. Fit it yourself and the labor line disappears.

Quick answer: the parts of a chimney divide into two runs plus the hardware that joins them. Connector pipe carries smoke from the stove to the ceiling; Class A insulated chimney pipe carries it out through the building.

Quick answer: three liner types turn up in US homes. Flexible stainless steel is what almost every wood-stove reline uses, rigid stainless suits a dead-straight flue, and clay tile is the old masonry lining you are probably replacing. For a wood-burning appliance, a flexible 316Ti stainless liner is the standard choice.