Just an update, I went with the Jotul f45, and I'm glad I did. We had a somewhat mild winter for alaska and I know now the f55 would have been overkill. The f45 looks plenty grand in the living room. Beautiful viewing glass, and overall a great stove. Easy to control, super long burns, from nov1- april1 went through about 3.5 cords white birch as my primary heat source. Couldn't be happier. Was shocked to see them discontinue this model though, hopefully a f45 v3 non-cat is coming out. Highly recommend.