I'm surprised at all those advices. I own and regularly use a wood and pellets stove. Use as a wood stove easily lets smoke enter the room when I open the door for recharging*. Use with pellets does not give any dust problem but it will create a mess when you clean the innermost of the stove in any case. I am probably excessively maniacal in cleaning internal recesses of the furnace, but clean an operation it would never be in any case.
I use it mostly with wood and my living room is a mess - it would be a mess also without stove, so no problem
Besides, depending of your circumstances, you might have a chimney which has to be cleaned from the roof with debris falling inside the furnace, or even, which would be worse, which has to be cleaned from inside the house.
I would avoid installing any solid fuel stove near a darkroom. Considering that the house is small, a methane, GPL, petrol or paraffin oil stove is probably a much better solution. Those are stoves that are typically designed to be mounted in "sealed chamber".
If you install a wood stove, I would suggest installing a wood-only stove with great autonomy (6 hours or more), so that you never open the stove to refuel during operation. Also, buy a stove with a separate ash tray. Some of those have an ash tray with cover. Further, buy a vacuum cleaner specific for ashes. This will take space but it will improve the cleanliness of the stove cleaning operations.
Wood stoves and pellet stove are not practical if you don't have a place in your apartment where to store the fuel. That's typically not so clean, not so good looking, and takes more space than you think. Besides, you have to check how this is compatible with your "floor" (how many stairs, do you have a lift, that kind of stuff).
Properly cleaning the inside of the stove is very important not just for the efficiency of the stove, but also for the survival of the owner.
High-efficiency stoves tend to have a convoluted
giro fumi, I don't know the English equivalent, "smoke trajectory" or "smoke path". There probably are some small holes somewhere. Those holes have to be kept unobstructed. If they become partially obstructed, the combustion will appear to happen normally at slow "pace", but it will be an incomplete combustion, with a high production of carbon monoxide, which is fairly undetectable by the human nose, and easily fatal.
In a small apartment you cannot use an extracting fan while having the stove operating (kitchen, darkrooms often have those devices). That will either produce a bad combustion or plainly invert the "chimney" and pump carbon monoxide inside the room. Never extract air from the same room, or from a room adjacent to the room where the stove is installed. Modern stoves have a depression sensor but mind my word: never.
If you have a darkroom with an extracting fan that means you'll have to choose either to use the darkroom or to keep the stove going.
You can solve that by installing the stove in
camera stagna, (sealed room?), I mean with air intake from the outside, smoke expulsion obviously outside, and the furnace and all elements "sealed", so that air intake, furnace and smoke trail have no point of contact with the room. Not every stove is conceived to be installed this way. Some stoves take the air for primary combustion from the outside, but do take in any case the air for the secondary (and maybe tertiary) combustion from the room, so that the furnace is not really isolated from the room. Gas and liquid fuel stoves can normally be installed "sealed" from the environment. Do check the specification.
This kind of installation has got some defects but it is safer and in your case is certainly more desirable as it would uncouple the stove from the darkroom.
This is a decision that you should weight carefully. Anyway as a passionate of wood burning I will tell you that I will never live any more without a flame in my house. But in your case, I would install a liquid or gaseous fuel stove.
* Some stoves have a smoke trail that does not let smoke enter the room also when the stove door is open. Those are typically sold as for cooking also. I presume they can never be "sealed" so I don't think they would fit your situation.
)
