Lopi, PE or Regency wood insert and what size?

[LZfamily]

I am excited to get a wood burning insert for our house. We had a free standing Lopi Leyden and LOVED IT, but it was too big for our space! We dont want to make that mistake again, so I have 2 questions...size and which one?
Current house has a fireplace in it, we already had someone out and it can fit an insert. It is located in our family room that has a 2 story ceiling and the fireplace is on an exterior wall. The house is about 3,000 square feet, my hope is we can use the insert to significant cut our gas furnace heating costs, we are located in northern Illinois, we typically dont have winter outages to worry about. I would try to run it over night and during the day. I attached the floor plan, we have an openish layout. The kids bedrooms are next to the open 2 story family room so hopefully they will stay nice and warm, but again I dont want to bake them out of their rooms. And the family room is next to the office and kitchen so again those I assume should all stay warm....if we get the right size. So my first question is WHAT SIZE do we get? I was thinking bigger is better and looking at inserts that can heat up to 3,000 square feet, but will that roast us out of the house? I have talked with 3 different local companies and they are all being more sale people than helping me talk through this. One sales women said its up to us, but sent out there install guy to confirm the lopi large flush would fit. The other guy suggested a medium because of size, but he said he would double check measurements and let us know. And the third guy just ran with larger units since I said that is what I was initially looking at. So which do we get a medium or large insert?

Second question is which insert? I LOVED having a free standing stove, so I would LOVE one that comes out onto the hearth, but only if it comes out enough to put a kettle or small pot on. But finding something like this is hard, since it's not the trending style.

These are the ones that my local stores carry:
1-Hearthstone Clydesdale- soap stone to me doesn’t make sense on an insert, so I am ruling that out, unless someone can talk me into this.
2-Lopi evergreen
3-PE Summit or Super LE or Alderlea T5
4-Regency Hampton 2450 or classic 2450.

It looks like Summit and Regency have true shelf/bump out onto the hearth? One of the sales guys did not really suggest Regency. Does anyone have thoughts on Lopi, PE or Regency? Can anyone speak to the fan on these units, I read some have only 2 options vs a variable speed, some people say they are noisy, any other features I might be overlooking that would be good to know? I think all 3 of them have some for of hybrid technology, I think I want to stay away from cat’s. Does the bump out make a difference? To me I like the idea of having a shelf to put a kettle on and a bottom lip for any hot coals/ash, seems easier to wipe off that trying to get it out of the hearth bumps. But instead of stressing about this should I just do the Lopi flush insert? To me I just cant wrap my head around flush pushing out as much as a stove that bumps out onto the hearth.
I guess that is my last question are Lopi flush inserts really as effective as some of these other options I listed? THANK YOU!

 

[begreen]

A flush insert can put out good heat, but it needs the blower running to do this. An insert that projects out 6 or so inches onto the hearth will radiate more heat, even if there is a power outage and the blower can't be run.
The insert will heat the family room to the kitchen and a bit of the office but a lot of the heat will be going upstairs due to the open loft area. A ceiling fan in the open area will help move the air. Don't go small, this is a large house.