We have found a reasonably satisfactory solution. Our house basically divides into 3rds. On one end is the living room third with the stove, which is totally open to the peak of the cathedral ceiling 24 feet up The other two thirds are two story with nominal 8' ceilings - The second floor is the master suite, and a small loft area open to the living room. On the first floor is the kitchen / dining area that occupies the center third of the house, then two bedrooms and the main bath in the far third.
Underneath everything is a full basement, with an open area under the living room and kitchen thirds. There is a half bath, the furnace room and a storage room under the bedroom third. It is a beautiful house, but not a very practical one.
There are large passageways between the kitchen and living rooms, and the stairs to the 2nd floor and basement are very open. The first floor bedrooms are in a sort of "T" hallway.
The stove used to do a good job heating the living-room, dining area and master suite, but didn't do much for the bedrooms. However I've gotten a "
Thermguard" from Bear Mountain Design, which is intended for addressing this sort of application. It is a little box that wires in across the fan terminals of your HVAC thermostat, and cycles the fan on a programmable basis. Since we've gotten the box, I typically see no more than 1-2*F difference between the living rooms and the bedrooms. As long as I stay on top of keeping the stove loaded, I can keep the house in the low 70's.
Currently I have the box on its default programming of running the fan five minutes on and 15 off. Haven't seen any real reason to change it.
(The box also advertises itself as useful in hot water systems for periodically circulating the water to keep if from freezing)
The downside is that I seem to be loosing more heat from the living room than I'm gaining in the bedrooms - It used to be the bedrooms would be in the low - mid 60's, and the living room would be near 80. Now everything is closer to the 69-72 range.
I've been thinking about trying to play games with blocking off different registers and returns to see if I can focus the distribution a bit, but I haven't decided which way I'm better off doing it - blocking the intakes in the living room and the registers in the rest of the house, or vice versa.
Gooserider
