Hogwildz said:
With a smaller stove, when its maxed out and 20 below out with windchill factor, you ain't getting no more heat.
Just a quick semi related note; windchill values have zero bearing on heating.
Wind in general will certainly impact heating a building, but wind chill values are a pretty arbitrary numbers that are really only relevant to exposed flesh and even then it is a misleading value. Kind of contradictory statement is it not?
The thermal engineers can correct me if I misstate this, but no amount of wind will lower the temperature of anything below the actual temperature on the mercury. Wind will certainly accelerate the rate of heat transfer, and in humans that can be perceived as feeling like a lower temperature, but even in a 100 knot breeze exposed objects will still only cool to the actual air temperature. In other words an exposed window with 10 degree outside air against it will never be colder on the outside than 10 degrees no matter how strong the wind.
True to a point, but a house in 20 degree night with no wind, vs. a home with 20mile an hour winds at 20 degrees is going to lose heat due to faster transfer. On top of that a house tha is not perfectly air tight will certainly lose more heat to draft due to wind & pressure more than calm.
I do not have a engineering degree, nor claim to know very much. But actual experience sitting in my home on a windy night vs. a calm night at same temps, my insert works harder and house cools easier & faster when windy vs. calm. Really not trying to come across argumentative (this time 
) just speaking from that which I experience here at home. For argument sake, I'll edit my initial remark.... Better to have a large stove that can burn smaller fires during warmer days/night yet have the capacity to load more with longer burn time and more heat when its 20 degrees or colder out, than having a stove that is maxed out with no additional room for any more heat output at the same temps. Bottom line, one must research and figure out what is best size for their situation. Also fuel wood must be taken into account. If someone in the west does not have the ability to obtain say oak or other hard woods, they will be reloading even more often with a smaller stove. Many factors to consider, and in the end, hopefully one feels they have made the right choice. Just really sucks to read someone is getting an unusually colder cold spell and stove is maxed out and struggling or not keeping up. If that person did their research and made a choice that was due to misleading manufacturer numbers, then he did the best he can, and will still have to bite the bullet if needing to trade for a larger stove. If the person just went out and bought a stove without researching and becoming informed as to the factors to make a decision on which type of stove, size, heating capacity, then shame on him.
Either way, if the stove is too small in the more extreme colder days & nights, and he feels he needs larger, he/she will have to bite the bullet either way if having to take a loss at diminished value at time of trade in and then go through yet another install and relearning of the new stove.
I ended up putting a Jotul Firelight in our 2200+- home. Jotul claims that the stove will heat 2500, and while we have not had any real cold yet (meaning sub zero), it feels like the stove will perform adequately. I should add that we have a very open floor plan, and that the stove is in central sunken area with a loft above with doors to all bedrooms facing it. It would certainly heat very differently if it were in a side room relying on fans to distribute heat everywhere.
In any event, it's nice to get off the electric grid a bit. True that your post is the opposite of most.
