What size stove

Hello,

I am planning to heat 3000 square foot home , two stories. I think reasonably insulated. I put R30 in the attic myself, don't know what is in the walls. The house was built in 1979 so I assume insulated with whatever was normal at the time. I don't notice any drafts.
The stove would be in a 26 x 13 room 8 foot ceilings install into existing fireplace. I posted a layout I had from my last appraisal. I also posted a picture of the room. There are 6 3x5 foot windows in the room. The two doors out of the room are both 5 ft wide and down stairs is roughly 1500 square feet. There is the one stairway upstairs. I have a Progress Hybrid from Woodstock on order was thinking because the house was 3000 square feet would need a big stove but am contemplating switching to the Fireview.

My concern is that the Progress may be too big and the family room where the stove is will be too hot and/or we will not be able to sit anywhere near the stove. If I am running a soapstone stove how closw can you practically sit to it without roasting? Our sitting area is now right in front of the fireplace I am wondering how far I will need to move the couches once I get the stove in.

Thanks for any input.

I surely wouldn't want a smaller stove. The way your drawing looks, you should be able to get a pretty decent convection loop and spread the heat around well. Strategically placed fans will help that along.

Any ceiling fans in the family room?

I do not have a ceiling fan in the family room.

Better to be large and burn smaller fires if needed, than go small and have it maxed out and still not heating enough.
Put a ceiling fan in that room.

+1......See the 2 stoves in my signature....I speak from personal exper,and I am sure others will also.

3,000 sq ft is a lot of space to heat. If anything, the Progress will have a tough time heating the entire place.

I think you will be fine with the PH but if you find it too much you could take advantage of the 6 month warranty and return it for a smaller stove. A 3/4 load in the PH would probably be about the same output as a fully loaded Fireview and you would have that extra capacity when you need it on the colder days.

Thank you all for the input. I am now having a healthy discussion with my wife about whether to go with stove or insert. The footprint of the PH or any other stove is the drawback. Plus going with an insert would let me skip hearth pad and heatshielding of mantle. We looked at the Regency I3100 the ratings look similar to the PH. Would I experience a difference in heating performance? The firebox is 2.9 on the I3100 vs 2.8 on the PH.
I kind of like the cat aspects but am on the fence on that.

As always , any input would be appreciated.

I lean towards free standing stove over an insert. Especially in Eastern PA as we tend to lose power often, at least in my area. Other than that, I have never used an insert, so my experience with them is limited.

Most times a free standing wood stove will give more heat than the insert and as Browning stated, a free standing would be much, much better in the times of power outages.