How much stove do I need?

[galega]

It sounds like your winters are a lot like ours. Humid, and not so cold.

Our living room is about the size of yours, and it's position in the house is not too unlike yours. But we do have good insulation. We have a "medium" stove. Last year we had a record cold winter, but even on the coldest days I could easily make the living room too hot.

But it doesn't do a good job getting heat into the other parts of the house. Even with fans blowing, it's much warmer in the room with the stove than in the opposite side of the house.

Thanks pyper - it's helpful to hear about others' experience in a similar climate. If I'm looking at the right stove, looks like your stove is rated a max BTU/hour of about 40,000 so it's in the neigborhood of the Jotul F400 (which claims a max BTU/hr of 55,000 but taking all this with a grain of salt). I know insulation is a big deal, so if you're able to easily make the living room "too hot" even on the coldest days, my hope is that the lack of insulation will knock me down a peg but that I'll still be able to make the living room "comfortably warm" even on the coldest days. We'll see, I'm moving forward with the Jotul F400 although things go at a snail's pace when doing it long-distance.

As for the rest of the house ... any heat to the other rooms was always going to be gravy, I guess. Although in our case perhaps the uninsulated brick wall behind the stove will warm up enough to keep the bedroom on the other side of the wall somewhat warm. If this stove works out well, I will have to see whether it makes sense to look to put a smaller stove somewhere in the other side of the house. But one stove at a time for this newbie