Another cracked PE insert replaced

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Can thread title be updated to reflect the positive news??
 
Stove is in! Looks beautiful, took a long time but in the end they did what is right. Alot of the time was dealer issues since I did not have one and the distibutor needed to find one to do the install. As far as construction goes (disclaimer: I am not a welder) it looks just like the old on as far as the welds go in the firebox. Maybe the penetration is better but who am I to know. The ash lip and upper trim are more decorative and there are two blowers instead of one. Just something in the back of my head says its going to crack but it probably won't! Here is the kicker. They did not want old stove back but since I have a bad back an no way to move it it went out for scrap! I did keep the old firebricks for spares since they were in good shape. Had to use the old door and surround but that was no big deal. All in all I'm very happy and cant wait for it to get cold again! ( I will regret saying that I know :) )
Seems like they would want it to destroy it so that someone could not get it, either you selling it or if you hauled it for scrap the scrap yard guy getting it and seliing it then a house fire and PE getting sued for it? I m also supprised they did not haul it off for scrap?
 
Good to hear that you are back in action. Thread title updated. Send a link to PE if you haven't already.
 
I am glad to hear that the issue has been resolved! Did they just replace the firebox or the whole stove (door included)?
 
no door, no surround
 
no door, no surround


That is the same as my replacement. The only thing different is that the distributor took my old firebox. I hope PE used it to study what went wrong and didn't just scrap it.
 
September to May just to say it will be replaced. That is a crock. A very large crock full of it. My freakin 30 had a problem and they replaced the thing in two weeks. Which should be standard for something with a fire in it in your house. I don't care who made it.

Excuse me for not wanting something with a "lifetime" warranty if it takes half a lifetime to get it done.
September to July for resolution. Sigh.

I just gotta show this to a dealer I talked to the other day. He made a point of mentioning the cheaper Englander's to illustrate how important local customer service is and the importance of quality in a wood stove as a safety issue. He's not a PE dealer, but the point he was making was generic.

IMO, any manufacturer can have occasional issues, but how they handle them is paramount. This can't be PE's finest hour.

The PE Super 27 step top is high on my short list, but this episode does not leave me with a warm, fuzzy feeling about the company. I will still be talking to a PE dealer, but I will ask about this issue just to see what they say about it.

So I have to ask, was this an aberration or does PE warranty service actually suck this bad? Any other PE horror stories? I know PE has a following here. BTW, I guess there was an early problem with no original dealer on this, but PE needed to step up and do what's right regardless of that. No excuse there.
 
So far it looks like there was a batch of Summit inserts around 2007 that had bad welds. This has not shown up in other lines. The mid-sized PEs have a great track record. I would not hesitate if this is your stove of choice. If you're concerned about dealer support, get it from Tom's shop in Bellingham. They shoot for customer satisfaction as their first priority.
 
I got one from Tom a couple of years ago. And he may be the best person I have ever dealt with when it comes to customer satisfaction. It is a long story, but suffice it to say that Tom is the finest, and my PE Summit is a winner.
 
I got one from Tom a couple of years ago. And he may be the best person I have ever dealt with when it comes to customer satisfaction. It is a long story, but suffice it to say that Tom is the finest, and my PE Summit is a winner.
Good to know. Thanks.
 
You don't want to know how PE handled my situation....went and bought a Jotul. I think PE is a good stove...but PE likes to drag their feet getting anything done. As I would expect from probably any of them...But they really took their time getting things done for me. Hopefully they fix their lethargic thinking.
 
You don't want to know how PE handled my situation....went and bought a Jotul. I think PE is a good stove...but PE likes to drag their feet getting anything done. As I would expect from probably any of them...But they really took their time getting things done for me. Hopefully they fix their lethargic thinking.
Bad to know, thanks.
:)
 
No problem, but remember prices jump up sharply after Labor Day. And of course this season's wood should have been stacked and drying a long time ago.
 
No problem, but remember prices jump up sharply after Labor Day. And of course this season's wood should have been stacked and drying a long time ago.
Yeah, the first thing I did when we moved here and my wife said "Can we get a wood stove?", which really meant "We're going to get a wood stove!", was to buy about 6 cords of wood for the next two or three years. Some of it was semi-seasoned, some very green, some fir, most alder, and I was counting on the older stuff to season out well enough for this winter, but with all the dreary weather, I'm a bit worried. Maybe we'll still see a summer yet, though. Gotta be optimistic. Last two days have been a good start... Being a gadget guy, I got a moisture meter, the 2-pin kind, and I'm monitoring a few sample quarter splits every few days to see if there's any hope.
 
Yeah, the first thing I did when we moved here and my wife said "Can we get a wood stove?", which really meant "We're going to get a wood stove!", was to buy about 6 cords of wood for the next two or three years. Some of it was semi-seasoned, some very green, some fir, most alder, and I was counting on the older stuff to season out well enough for this winter, but with all the dreary weather, I'm a bit worried. Maybe we'll still see a summer yet, though. Gotta be optimistic. Last two days have been a good start... Being a gadget guy, I got a moisture meter, the 2-pin kind, and I'm monitoring a few sample quarter splits every few days to see if there's any hope.
6 cords for 2 or 3 seasons? I assume your only burning occasionally, otherwise, your going to run short somewhere between year 2 and 3. Especially first few years of burning and learning the stove and burning habits.
 
6 cords for 2 or 3 seasons? I assume your only burning occasionally, otherwise, your going to run short somewhere between year 2 and 3. Especially first few years of burning and learning the stove and burning habits.
Point taken. I actually don't now how much we'll burn but it will be largely for ambiance and supplemental heat. It's also a pretty mild climate. We only pay 5.2 cents/kwh for electric here, so a $3,000 stove installed and $175 wood isn't exactly cost effective anyhow. Oh, and It's more like 7 cords now, but mostly alder which isn't that great for BTU's. I've really got to get some better species here for later years. The alder was pretty cheap, though.
 
If the wood is split, covered on top and stacked so that the prevailing wind can blow through it, you should be ok with the wood that was not totally green. Fir and alder dry reasonably quick after splitting. Save the totally green wood for another year. And be sure the alder is off the ground. It goes punky quickly if left on the damp earth.

5.2 cents per kw is great. We pay twice that. What electric company is that with?
 
If the wood is split, covered on top and stacked so that the prevailing wind can blow through it, you should be ok with the wood that was not totally green. Fir and alder dry reasonably quick after splitting. Save the totally green wood for another year. And be sure the alder is off the ground. It goes punky quickly if left on the damp earth.

5.2 cents per kw is great. We pay twice that. What electric company is that with?
It's Lewis County PUD. It's almost all from BPA (For the others here, it's Bonneville Power Administration which supplies much of the NW with hydro-electric power from the huge Columbia River dams). This is an interesting paragraph from PUD's website:
Lewis County PUD currently gets nearly 100% of its power from the BPA at relatively low cost (even with the BPA increase); approximately 3 cents/kwh. However, in 2006, the voters of the state of Washington approved Initiative 937 which requires public utilities, including Lewis PUD, to supply 3%, 9%, and 15% of their power from renewable resources by 2012, 2016, and 2020, respectively. Even though over 85% of Lewis PUDs supply is from clean, non-carbon emitting, hydroelectric resources, hydroelectric power does not count as renewable for purposes of Initiative 937. The result, Lewis PUD and other public utilities in the State of Washington have had to purchase high cost wind power (in the 6 to 10 cent/kwh range) that they do not need and is no cleaner than the hydroelectricity the PUD already delivers to customers.
Apparently, some of the customers complain about rates, so they go on to explain their costs and increases. I think this is the lowest I've ever seen, even from other PUD's we've been on. This is a comparison chart for Western Wa: http://www.lcpud.org/images/Rate Comparisions/Utility Rate Comparison 8-18-11.pdf We were previously on Seattle's PSE (private company) at almost 10c.
 
We pay $0.13 cents an hour in the summer and $0.12 cents an hour in the winter!!
 
Talk about stealing a thread j/k but back on topic. This problem is not just with Summits. I know of at least two mid size PE's that have been affected and mine was one of them (an insert) and mine was manufactured in 2007
 
Talk about stealing a thread j/k but back on topic. This problem is not just with Summits. I know of at least two mid size PE's that have been affected and mine was one of them (an insert) and mine was manufactured in 2007
Are these kinds of cracks obvious to a typical user? I'm wondering how many such defects might go undiscovered or ignored by most owners. Thermal stresses must be a huge problem in stove design.
 
Yes and no. Some cracks we internal but obvious is you knew where to look (I did thanks to this forum) and the othrs occur on the face of the stove and should be noticed by the average user that cleans his stove once a year. You can look up in this thread for pictures.
 
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