He lives half an hour North of my family home in Westchster, NY. I am well familiar with his climate, which is considerably warmer than mine in Southern Ontario.
You are simply wrong.
For many years I used a Fireview as my only heat source in Southern Ontario. The first floor was warm, except when it was colder than 20 below F. The seond and third floors were not. They'd be in the low 60s, or even 50's, if it was bitterly cold out. Fine for sleeping actually, and that's all we have upstairs: bedrooms. Have electric heat available in the bathrooms, so just heated them if having baths. My home has nearly as much square footage as the original poster...about 4200. Plus a full basement.
The Fireview is a fairly small straight cat soapstone stove.
The Progress Hybrid is an entire different story. EPA rated 71,000 plus versus Fireview 42,000 or so EPA rating, and the heat put off by the PH IS that much more. And it puts it out from darn near the same amount of wood.
My home is now comfortable in any temperature/weather condition, and the temperatures are very even throughout the home. One is not aware of any chilling as one climbs from the first to second floor, or second to third. Don't really understand why you think radiant heat won't warm a home. It does: very comfortably. And it does not hurt a cat stove to run it at 550 to 600 with really active flames. Like any other stove, you want to keep it under 700. Not good for the cast iron structural parts.
Have you ever heated with a soapstone stove?
