Harman P-68 in basement

I have a 1800 (roughly) sqft ranch and heat from the basement (did that with just an englander pdv). We have an open concept to the basement similar to a split entry and have a ceiling fan above to pull up heat. Im able to heat mine, but i have a giant hole in the middle of my house. you should be able to heat quite a bit of the house but youll need to experiment.

Hello
I have a split with the Harman P61a in the center of the house from left to right and it is also centered from front to back. I cut 2 registers, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. The register goes into 6" round ductwork into a "Y" then into a boot touching the stove covering half of the heat exchanger tubes. The duct has one inline booster fan. Half the heat exhanger heats the basement and the other half goes right upstairs. I extended the room probe to go upstairs into the living room where it keeps the set temp within one degree. This setup heats the entire house easily and comfortably!
See pics and more detail of my setup here
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...emote-room-probe-success.120545/#post-1614417
Also see register and ducts here
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ribution-getting-the-heat-up-one-floor.65315/

If you plan a basement install, you should definitely give coal stokers a look too, especially in Pa!

Check your local codes and home insurance. Some do not allow holes to be cut from on floor to another to allow passage of air. Plus you might get the reverse effect depending on the draft of your home which may be still OK.

You'll be surprised at how well it can heat without cutting registers into the floor/ceiling.
My Accentra runs mid settings keeping the finished basement 80 (too got for me but the wife loves in), the first floor around 66-68 and 2nd floor around 67-70 when outside temps are in the 20s-30s. That is will just stairwell air passage.
I have considered putting in at least one floor/ceiling register in though just to help.
As someone else stated you should check with local building code. It is not approved in some areas if it is an actual open passage. If there were ever a fire in the basement, smoke and fire would spread to the first floor faster with an open floor grate.
I had come across a few grates in my search that had a temperature sensing "flap" inside that would close if a fire was sensed.
Keep us posted on if you do, what you use and how well it works.

Before doing any cutting of your floors (like I did - which did not help at all), you need to find out how your heat will actually disperse naturally. I have a smaller house and basement than you, the stove sits on one end of the house and a P61a, running full bore, couldn't get my main floor warmer than 62-64 - with the bedrooms in the 40's & 50's (Jan-Feb in the winter of 2013-14). Oh sure, the basement was 90, but the heat would not rise a bit. That was with cutting all kinds of returns in the only decent thing in my house (original hardwood flooring) and running 4 register fans up and 1 down.

Now, one thing you have going for you is that the basement is finished, so it will retain heat a little better than my unfinished. also it looks as if your stairway is centrally located in the house (I assume that is it in the middle anyway), so that should help. A possible issue might be if that other 600 s/ft is an underneath garage. No matter what I do, cold air comes up thru the well-insulated floors into my bedrooms.

Try an electric or propane space heater down there (of ~same BTU as the P68) and see how the air moves for you - you may be pleasantly surprised, or not.

Unfortunately every house and set up react differently - my P61a should have easily heated the space I asked it to (1500 s/ft total), especially after installing new insulation & vapor barrier on the main floor, hard foam insulation on the basement walls, and new windows and roof over the summer. But it didn't - I ended up getting a smaller stove for the main floor to be able to keep the bedrooms at a liveable temperature over this winter.

I live in a raised ranch and had my stove in the basement for 2 years the best thing I have done was move it upstairs to the main floor. I put a box fan on the top of the steps to circulate the air to keep my basement from freezing which it has stayed a pretty constant 50 degrees. I had a register when my stove was in the basement which really didn't work. Like many have said in this forum, if you want heat put the stove where you will be.

Hey Jeff, Welcome! I heat two levels of 2,350 SQ FT with one P68 and it does it well. Results can and do vary depending on floor plans and layout etc; I think you should be able to heat your home pretty easily but keep in mind the farther from the stove the cooler it can get. What I have is about an 8 degree difference (cooler) in the farthest away bedrooms.