The day Harman Died

cimbo190 said:

stoveguy2esw said:

i still think they simply did not have the time after starting back up to build enough ahead and with orders flying in at record pace they were just flat unable to run what they would have to run. as i stated before its hard to start up from being shut down. when i first started at ESW we would shut down to bare minimums keeping key personnel and use the winter for maintenance while building very few stoves, we would start very slowly , increasing as we added more people back to the production line , bought more steel and parts from vendors etc. if harman shut down totally , then they would not have had inbound parts in the pipeline , workers would have been laid off and possibly moved to other jobs, training new workers takes time too. im not trying to paint a prettier picture on it but i can understand why they do not have the product , they simply could not get geared up fast enough to make enough product for this season. now had it been a slow year yeah they may have been able to pull it off , but demand is stupid high this year and with the shutdown they lost too much time and probably a lot of their trained workforce. its just too much to overcome.

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From the sound of that - which is very palusible, I am not sure a Harman would still be a Harman anymore.

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stoveguy2esw said:

cimbo190 said:

stoveguy2esw said:

i still think they simply did not have the time after starting back up to build enough ahead and with orders flying in at record pace they were just flat unable to run what they would have to run. as i stated before its hard to start up from being shut down. when i first started at ESW we would shut down to bare minimums keeping key personnel and use the winter for maintenance while building very few stoves, we would start very slowly , increasing as we added more people back to the production line , bought more steel and parts from vendors etc. if harman shut down totally , then they would not have had inbound parts in the pipeline , workers would have been laid off and possibly moved to other jobs, training new workers takes time too. im not trying to paint a prettier picture on it but i can understand why they do not have the product , they simply could not get geared up fast enough to make enough product for this season. now had it been a slow year yeah they may have been able to pull it off , but demand is stupid high this year and with the shutdown they lost too much time and probably a lot of their trained workforce. its just too much to overcome.

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From the sound of that - which is very palusible, I am not sure a Harman would still be a Harman anymore.

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and you know , that may be part of it. maybe they are pulling the plug due to the extra time it will take to get their normal excellent quality of product and they do not want to lower that standard. im not sure how they are set up but they may not be designed as a factory for that kind of production anyway. we are set up in such a way that we can maintain quality standards at a high volume. they may not be set up that way , not to mention retraining on top of that.

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boudreaub said:

From what I'm seeing in central Maine, Quad dealers have no idea if or when they'll get new stoves. The same goes for Enviro. There are a couple place promising Englander stoves or Summer's Heat stoves. Both of those brands are likely good brands, but, I am unable to get installation. Also, I wanted pretty much a 60,000 BTU or higher stove, which greatly limits my selection.

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gw2kpro said:

Yep. I couldn't get my enviro mini (second pellet stove) locally, so I ordered it 3 months ago from a dealer I found in Colorado. They had them on sale for $1199. They were willing to sell it to me but has no idea how to get it to me. So I contacted a freight company and they brought it to my business (in Bangor) for $210. Got into it for about $1450, taxes included, took 8 days to get here from the time I purchased it.

Brought it home, fired it up in the garage, it runs like a champ, was very impressed by how it's built, learned a whole lot about the stove unpacking it and setting it up myself.

Of course, I'm fully aware that I'm on my own to do my own repair work if it needs it while it's under warranty.

Honestly, I've had more trouble getting my vent pipe than getting my stove, that stuff has been backordered for 2 weeks now, it is supposed to ship Monday.

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slls said:

I wonder what really happened at Harmon. Why the stoves were canceled, could not get vendor items or what. Maybe the reason will leak, it usually does over time.

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Hoverfly said:

gw2kpro said:

Yep. I couldn't get my enviro mini (second pellet stove) locally, so I ordered it 3 months ago from a dealer I found in Colorado. They had them on sale for $1199. They were willing to sell it to me but has no idea how to get it to me. So I contacted a freight company and they brought it to my business (in Bangor) for $210. Got into it for about $1450, taxes included, took 8 days to get here from the time I purchased it.

Brought it home, fired it up in the garage, it runs like a champ, was very impressed by how it's built, learned a whole lot about the stove unpacking it and setting it up myself.

Of course, I'm fully aware that I'm on my own to do my own repair work if it needs it while it's under warranty.

Honestly, I've had more trouble getting my vent pipe than getting my stove, that stuff has been backordered for 2 weeks now, it is supposed to ship Monday.

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Wow!! you got a better deal than I did two months ago on my Mini......Now I am not going to say how much I got mine it's that bad!! :red: Oh well at least I have one, but some how I don't feel bad about what I paid. Go figure....

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gw2kpro said:

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I was very fortunate. Bear in mind that I have no local support to back it up (I'm assuming you got yours locally). I didn't want to put money down on one and wait, I wanted to find a place that had one in stock that I could buy and get the thing into my garage. They also had the evolution for $1399, that's a really nice unit (85 lb hopper would be sweet) but was too much output for where I wanted to put it. Congrats on the mini! I am extremely impressed on how they are built, everything is easy to get at and very solid construction. I'm almost, ALMOST looking forward to it getting cold enough to burn it. Almost.

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Webmaster said:

slls said:

I wonder what really happened at Harmon. Why the stoves were canceled, could not get vendor items or what. Maybe the reason will leak, it usually does over time.

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Lots of potential guesses.....

1. Harman gets their castings from ----- Vermont Castings! That company went belly up this summer and was/is in limbo. Without castings, there is no Harman (fancier) stoves! VC foundry may be producing some stuff, but lots of news stories in VT told of layoffs.

you cannot simply transfer these patterns and start new production.....too difficult.

2. Parent company is transferring sub-assemblies to their other plants in the USA, Mexico and Asia? Or certain entire stoves?

As to what happened at Harman, if this was a normal year it would probably be NOTHING. What happened was that the buying public got spooked and ran out and bought (or tried to) Harmans.

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