downeast said:
A slight reality check is in order here guys. CFM/VC has a long way to go to erase the too many years of poor quality production since the buyout of the original Vermont Castings. Poor experience with the stoves since the mid-90's from dealers AND users.
1. Are the plants ISO 9___ series certified ?
2. Does "VC" now warranty their products without legal waffling ?
3. Can the user/customer call 1-800-HELP for assistance if the dealer cannot do the job ?
4. Does CFM/VC review their stoves WITH users ?
5. Where do the ingots for the casts originate ? Here, China ? How is the iron QC'd ?
6. How many parts in the stoves are outsourced offshore ?
Nicer job Elk, BUT.......we need to be shown before this honeymoon ends. Too many have been burnt (sic) by past product problems.
Flame away....................
Good set of questions - A lot of them I don't know the answers to, but hopefully we can find out.
1. I didn't see any signs bragging about ISO certification, but having worked in several ISO certified plants, and helped in maintaining ISO certs, I will say that IMHO having an ISO certification is way over-rated. You can produce crap and get ISO certified as long as your documentation says "produce crap" OTOH, you can produce perfect products, but if you don't have 100% documented procedures, you won't get an ISO cert. ALL that ISO cares about is that your production procedures have written documentation, and that the production people use the docs. ISO is almost a "dumb-down" process in many ways, as the idea is to document something in such excruciating detail that a non-trained person could pick up the doc and make the product. There is NO provision for skilled crafts people doing the right thing.
2. I don't think you will find any kind of product these days that is sold without a bunch of legal waffling. The VC Warranty looked pretty straightforward to me, with the sort of exceptions that I would expect in a wood stove product - i.e. don't over fire, don't burn unaproved fuels, install per manual / codes, don't modify the stove, etc. I didn't see anything that I thought was "scary" in the way of exemptions. They also make the warranty transferrable w/ original proof of purchase, which is more than many do.
3. I don't know. Certainly they can ask us for help :lol:
4. Not sure what you mean by that, so I can't really answer. One thing I did notice was that except for test runs where a specific fuel load is specified, the fuel they burn in the test lab is "real wood" not anything special. The stuff I saw in the piles looked about the same as what I've got in my wood shed. (I didn't ask if they did any testing with Bio-Bricks or other "manufactured" fuel.)
5. We were told the iron they use is about 50-50 new metal and recycled metal. I'm not sure where the new metal comes from, the recycled stuff was largely brake drums and other cast metal parts, recognizable stuff in the piles waiting to go into the furnaces. They also recycle a large amount of stuff from their own plant, reject parts, mold sprues, and so forth. I don't know how the iron is QC'd, but the casting process itself is very heavily automated and computer controlled, including things like exactly how much metal gets poured into each mold, etc.
6. Very little of their stuff comes from offshore. Their plant can't make "ductile iron" parts, so those come from offshore, but everything else is produced inhouse or by domestic suppliers (Possible exception for minor parts like gasketing and bolts etc. which I don't know about, but anything cast they definitely make themselves) They even cast their own refractory parts (I don't know where the raw material for that comes from)
Gooserider