How many had bad experiences with their dealer

[jonw440]

I bought my Harman P61A from Heartline stoves in Jaffry NH 5 years ago. We had trouble from the start with the stove igniting.
I called and they gave me the old "you really need to clean burnpot" excuse. Not one time did they offer to send a tech out to look at it.
Two years ago the owner of the store spoke to me on the phone and told me to cement the top holes in the burn pot as this will keep more of the hot air down lower in the burn pot to help ignition.
Well after reading on here it sounds like my ignitor was crap from the beginning. The owner said he has NEVER heard of bad ignitors from Harmon.
I went up there today to buy a new igniter but wanted a discount on the igniter.
The owner said Harman sets the price not us. I asked if I could buy it at their price,, I was told "That was none of my business.

I was also called a lier about me having this much trouble and why I didn't ask for a service call.
I guess If I had said the MAGIC words. "I need a service call" then they would have come out.
You would think that by me calling every year 2 or 3 times a year calling about the same problem they would have offered to come look at it.

I plan on calling and sending a letter to Harman about this dealer.
Total disregard about customers.
I purchased my stove, 5 tons of pellets, accessories and have sent two people from work there and this is the help I get.
In the end if he would have offered a 40% discount I would have been happy.
I just picked up a new igniter from another dealer who is now the place I will be buying a new stove for the den.

 

[jobrien101]

Yes, I too have not had much luck with my Harman dealer - The Stove Place in Shrewsbury, MA. I always get the same song and dance from those people "you need to do a deep cleaning". Frankly, I think they are freaking idiots! Once you purchase the stove they do not want to hear from you and if they have to come out and do that "deep cleaning" it costs $185.00. There deep cleaning is much less than I do so don't even waste your money.
I almost wish I never purchased a pellet stove in the first place. Pellets are never the same quality even if you purchase the same brand. Also 2 out of the 4 years that I have used the stove so far (not including this year) there has been a pellet shortage. So if supply is short and pellet quality is questionable then why buy a pellet stove?? Sorry about the rant, just my .02.

 

[stillersnut]

Sorry that you two had bad experiences. With Harmans great customer service reputation, I would take up any beef with them. I have had great service response from both my dealer and stove co.(Thelin). When I have a question about my stove I call Thelin and talk to the owner of the co, who answers any question personally. Go over your insufficiant dealers head and call the stove co. Best of luck, and hope for a happy burn.

 

[Bigb62]

So far, I have not been impressed with my Harman dealer. Looked at pellet stove on Sept. 26 (Sat.), was told they were about 2 weeks out..... so, I'll take it! Told me they would call that week to schedule the inspection and install. Went back on Saturday the 10th to find out why they hadn't called, and to pick up pellets so I could use it right away. was told they would come and look over our place to be sure to have everything to install on the 12th of Oct. and install it on the 23rd! Told them I wanted the stove now and would install it myself and was told I would be called Monday A.M. to tell me how much it would be($$) since I would save 'about' $500 doing it myself, and it would give them time to test burn my stove. Monday the 12th, they called and told me they would order my stove and it should be in by Wednesday or Thursday. When I picked it up Thursday, they knocked off $304. The only one there that was helpful was the kid in the yard loading me up, took the time to explain a few of the tricks for installing. Hopefully I don't have any issues with the stove, I get the feeling they wouldn't warranty it for not having them install it, saying I did it wrong.

 

[Stentor]

I've had no problems with my Harman dealer who is in southern NH. I do have two general worries about pellet stoves:

1. Dependency on the dealer if there are problems. Maybe the solution would be to try for another Harman dealer if problems emerge (not that I expect any).
2. Fluctuating pellet quality. On that score I intend to stick with one of the generally recognized better pellets, even though that means paying a bit more.

I'm still happy with the pellet stove I bought a year ago but I have to admit I'm taking more of a chance than with an old fashioned wood stove.

 

[jobrien101]

How can you contact the stove manufacturer directly? I would love to get in touch with someone at Harman but they only provide a mailing address on their website. Does anyone have a telephone # or email contact?
On Harman's website it states that 1st contact is the dealer for problems/issues; then what is the 2nd step? My problem is with the dealer. I suppose I could try another dealer, but may get the same level of service. There is no reason to strive for customer service with the current set-up Harman utilizes.

 

[Stevekng]

I have three stoves from quadra fire, enviro, and st. croix. You can't contact any of them via phone directly. The dealer is the the one who holds your fate in his hands when it comes to stove warranty. I had a problem with Wayne's Stove and Canoe in Skowhegan and only by bullying him was I able to get my stove fixed. His install of my new stove was done by a sub contractor and he botched the install of my Enviro Meridian. This was my first pellet stove four seasons ago and I didn't know anything. I have since educated myself and have had fairly trouble free dealer experiences with my other two stoves.
I have had problems with all the stoves that came under the warrantys of the manufacturer. But the dealers were much better than Wayne's because I researched their customer service records. The good dealers were The Stove barn in Winslow Me and Pete's stove and Hearth on PEI Canada.

 

[krooser]

Harman Stoves... 717-362-9080.

Call 'em.

 

[muss]

I wouldn't buy a canoe paddle from Wayne's after buying my stove there a few years ago. Muss

 

[pellet burner]

They say an unhappy customer tells 30 people and a happy one tells about 5. Not intending to hijack this thread but I highly recommend Don's Chimney and Stove Shop in Livermore Maine. They treated me very well when purchasing my mt. vernon AE last year. I installed it myself and asked for an inspection following the install. They said it would be $35.00 for a service call. The owner himself came out and looked at it and said I did a good job and there would be no charge. He also let me take the venting pipe I needed for the install before I paid for it, with only my word I would pay him within the next 30 days. Who does that is this day and age?!!
A guy like that should be in business for a long time treating his customers like that. The opposite for those mentioned in the previous posts.

 

[investor7952]

How can you contact the stove manufacturer directly? I would love to get in touch with someone at Harman but they only provide a mailing address on their website. Does anyone have a telephone # or email contact?
On Harman's website it states that 1st contact is the dealer for problems/issues; then what is the 2nd step? My problem is with the dealer. I suppose I could try another dealer, but may get the same level of service. There is no reason to strive for customer service with the current set-up Harman utilizes.

I bitched to Harman with 8 emails in 2 months about my dealer and not 1 response. I did manage to call the company and they refered all questions to my nearest dealer who sucks. I found another dealer 30 miles away and he said I am out of his range of service. My dealer never put the fire wrap on flu pipe,never sealed the seams never caulked the outside of house around exhast pipe.The results over $3,000 in damage.We had to throw away 2 sets of custom made curtains that turned black,My marble on fireplace is black and have tryed a dozen different cleaners that guaranteed to work on marble but no luck.Ever window in house had to be cleaned and when wiped had dark black residue on them.The entire house was scrubed becuase of black residue due to this dealers incompetance.The outside siding was jet black becuase not sealed properly It took me weeks of scrubbing to get it almost clean. When I had the dealer over and showed him the mess he said I am making a big deal out of nothing.I proceeded to throw him out of the house and threatened to sue him.I never did. I explained all of this to Harman and got NO PLACE WITH THEM! Harman should be ashamed at themselves to not follow up on customer complaints they have with there local dealers !
I now dread the day I need something fixed and have no idea who to call.There are other stove dealers but only the one jackass sells Harman.
This is the same dealer that told me outside airkits are a wate of money and when he explained the stove set up told me to never take the feed off of 2

 

[Nikitas]

My experience with Don's Chimney & Stove Shop has been the same as Pellet Burner's. They installed my Mount Vernon AE last year and did the cleaning and inspection late last spring. If you are within driving distance of Livermore Falls, they are the people to deal with!

 

[MCPO]

How can you contact the stove manufacturer directly? I would love to get in touch with someone at Harman but they only provide a mailing address on their website. Does anyone have a telephone # or email contact?
On Harman's website it states that 1st contact is the dealer for problems/issues; then what is the 2nd step? My problem is with the dealer. I suppose I could try another dealer, but may get the same level of service. There is no reason to strive for customer service with the current set-up Harman utilizes.

I bitched to Harman with 8 emails in 2 months about my dealer and not 1 response. I did manage to call the company and they refered all questions to my nearest dealer who sucks. I found another dealer 30 miles away and he said I am out of his range of service. My dealer never put the fire wrap on flu pipe,never sealed the seams never caulked the outside of house around exhast pipe.The results over $3,000 in damage.We had to throw away 2 sets of custom made curtains that turned black,My marble on fireplace is black and have tryed a dozen different cleaners that guaranteed to work on marble but no luck.Ever window in house had to be cleaned and when wiped had dark black residue on them.The entire house was scrubed becuase of black residue due to this dealers incompetance.The outside siding was jet black becuase not sealed properly It took me weeks of scrubbing to get it almost clean. When I had the dealer over and showed him the mess he said I am making a big deal out of nothing.I proceeded to throw him out of the house and threatened to sue him.I never did. I explained all of this to Harman and got NO PLACE WITH THEM! Harman should be ashamed at themselves to not follow up on customer complaints they have with there local dealers !
I now dread the day I need something fixed and have no idea who to call.There are other stove dealers but only the one jackass sells Harman.
This is the same dealer that told me outside airkits are a wate of money and when he explained the stove set up told me to never take the feed off of 2

I`m a bit paranoid of stove dealers myself and those factory brands that distance / isolate themselves from the end consumer but some of your post seems like a stretch to me.
How does 2 sets of custom made curtains turn black without someone seeing the change of color and or damage being done at some point in time?
How does a marble fireplace turn black without someone seeing the change of color or damage being done at some point in time?
How does the siding turn black without someone seing the change of color or damage being done at some point in time?

 

[investor7952]

3 straight days of burning. Burgandy and light brown curtains
You dont make it a habit to check your curtains color or your marbles color or go to the far side of your house to look at your siding.This all happened in less than 3 days.It was early Jan when stove was installed.We were all excited and learning the stove.The last thing on our mind was this unit was installed wrong.It never crossed our minds that behind the insert the pipes were never sealed.It never crossed our minds the outside pipe wasnt cailked.Can you tell that your curtains are slowly turning a different color? We didnt and I guess we just arent as observant as you are.The bottom line THIS GUY DID A chitty JOB and Harman could careless.This is the issue not the fact that it took us few days to final fugure out something was wrong.God knows how much crap myself,wife and kids took in our lungs. I suppose we should have known this also.

 

[Bank]

Sound like we need a "sticky" for bad dealers who don't stand by their work/products. This has worked before with other consumer goods. Post their name, address and telephone number and let everyone know they are not to be trusted. This forum seems to have long arms and from what we saw last year with the Pennington and Corinth folks watching this website and their attempts to correct the problems. I am sure any reputable dealer would not want their name "trashed"on a forum like this. But if they treat their customers like trash, then trash'em away!

 

[swalz]

I see a lot of Harman dealers here get complaints, I am one that complained about my Harman dealer and I have been hearing that a lot of people were complaining about this dealer, Country Stoves and Fireplaces in Bear Delaware. Stay away from these guys, they lost Harman and Quadrafire and can no longer sell them. I made a complaint on the Harman web site and I guess a lot of other people did since they lost them as a dealer. I am now dealing with Angerstein's in Wilmington DE, from what I have been told by them everyone who comes in for help on their Harman stove purchased from Country Stoves has complained about them. They say they will take care of my issue and I hope they do, my stove is down until the crack in the auger tube gets fixed.

 

[Bank]

By the same token, it would be a good idea to give good press to those dealers who are honest and offer solid customer service.

 

[Bkins]

Quadrafire and Harman operate the same way. They almost refuse to talk to the stove owner. They don't want to be involved even though its their stove that someone may be having a problem with. They will not acknowledge that a bunch of their dealers are incompetent. When I was looking for my first Harman I drove 35 miles to get to the dealer whose website said they had stoves on display. Guess what, no display models and rude to boot. They quoted me a price for a p68 that ended up being about $500 more then another dealer. Same exact stove. They were not happy that I didn't want, or need them to come look at my install. They wanted $150 just to come look at it. I laughed at the salesman. This was after he was rude to begin with. They didn't want to sell a stove without the install included. This was in March of this year when the stoves had a $600 discount from Harman and Quad. I reported the dealer to Harman. Heard nothing.

A lot of the dealers operate the way GM used to. They are not good business men in my opinion. The dealer that is near me was better as far as their sales approach but the salesman told me they wouldn't honor a warranty for the stove if they didn't do the install. I walked out on him. Different buyers have different needs and my need did not include them doing a install. Both of these dealers seem to be floundering by the way. I am now dealing with a dealer that couldn't be nicer only problem is he is 2.5 hours away.

I don't know what the answer is. The dealers need to make money to keep the doors open yet with the way the ones by me do business I don't know how that is going to work out.

I often wonder if the manufacturers would do whatever is needed to get the problem resolved if it wouldn't be easier on everyone involved rather then hiding behind their dealer base. Some of the stove companys do this and get very good reviews. They certainly need their dealers for sales and some repairs but making sure their customers were happy even if it costs some dollars in parts would to me seem to be a good way to run a business.

Bkins

 

[MCPO]

3 straight days of burning. Burgandy and light brown curtains
You dont make it a habit to check your curtains color or your marbles color or go to the far side of your house to look at your siding.This all happened in less than 3 days.It was early Jan when stove was installed.We were all excited and learning the stove.The last thing on our mind was this unit was installed wrong.It never crossed our minds that behind the insert the pipes were never sealed.It never crossed our minds the outside pipe wasnt cailked.Can you tell that your curtains are slowly turning a different color? We didnt and I guess we just arent as observant as you are.The bottom line THIS GUY DID A chitty JOB and Harman could careless.This is the issue not the fact that it took us few days to final fugure out something was wrong.God knows how much crap myself,wife and kids took in our lungs. I suppose we should have known this also.

OK, you get the benefit of doubt. I wasn`t there and obviously you were. Wow , that must have been a really bad install job along with a bad running stove.
You would have to think even without sealing most of the smoke would be pushing right out the exhaust vent and only a little smoke leaking at the joints.

 

[investor7952]

The Harman accentra 2 insert has a plate that goes around the insert.The Dealer installed the stove without that plate because it hadnt come in yet.He assured me it was ok.There was a 3 inch gap at the to where I could see the exhaust pipe that was vented the the rear. It probably would have been ok if the 2 seams in the pipe were secured.They just fit them together and never caulked or sealed them.What tipped me off the something was up was a put a small 3inch peice of board on that gap.It wasnt airtight so I used some clear tape to try and seal it.After a day or so the tape peeled a bit but didnt pay it no mind.After the 2nd day my wife noticed the wood that I put there was getting black.Then I peeled the tape and noticed a big difference in the marble where the tape was and the area where it wasnt.It still didnt hit us what was going on.The next day my wife went to clean our sliding door window and called me at work to tell me the windex wipes turned black when she wiped the sliding door.Then she started to check the wooden coffe table and it was black and that started the messy cleanup.Even my 2nd floor windows had some black residue,I have no idea why it vented into the house that bad but it did.

 

[Lousyweather]

The Harman accentra 2 insert has a plate that goes around the insert.The Dealer installed the stove without that plate because it hadnt come in yet.He assured me it was ok.There was a 3 inch gap at the to where I could see the exhaust pipe that was vented the the rear. It probably would have been ok if the 2 seams in the pipe were secured.They just fit them together and never caulked or sealed them.What tipped me off the something was up was a put a small 3inch peice of board on that gap.It wasnt airtight so I used some clear tape to try and seal it.After a day or so the tape peeled a bit but didnt pay it no mind.After the 2nd day my wife noticed the wood that I put there was getting black.Then I peeled the tape and noticed a big difference in the marble where the tape was and the area where it wasnt.It still didnt hit us what was going on.The next day my wife went to clean our sliding door window and called me at work to tell me the windex wipes turned black when she wiped the sliding door.Then she started to check the wooden coffe table and it was black and that started the messy cleanup.Even my 2nd floor windows had some black residue,I have no idea why it vented into the house that bad but it did.

sounds like you are missing the extended shroud for an oversized opening.......AND the damper wasnt sealed off....AND the pipe wasnt siliconed in place...wow! Not a good idea to install a stove when you dont have all the parts......as a dealer, make one trip, do it right!

 

[Lousyweather]

Yes, I too have not had much luck with my Harman dealer - The Stove Place in Shrewsbury, MA. I always get the same song and dance from those people "you need to do a deep cleaning". Frankly, I think they are freaking idiots! Once you purchase the stove they do not want to hear from you and if they have to come out and do that "deep cleaning" it costs $185.00. There deep cleaning is much less than I do so don't even waste your money.
I almost wish I never purchased a pellet stove in the first place. Pellets are never the same quality even if you purchase the same brand. Also 2 out of the 4 years that I have used the stove so far (not including this year) there has been a pellet shortage. So if supply is short and pellet quality is questionable then why buy a pellet stove?? Sorry about the rant, just my .02.

Not a rant at all.......those are your observations. Though i might point out that the dealer doesnt control pellet quality, just the brand they sell. They also dont control pellet supply. The points you bring up are good ones about pellets in general though, not the dealer.

As for a cleaning, many folks do a GREAT job of cleaning! Many folks do a stupendously poor job as well. As a dealer, one has to come up with a charge to clean a stove based mostly upon the folks who require cleaning...and those are generally the folks who need it the most......so, i guess at that point we have to decide what is fair and right for a charge for the tech, mileage, insurance, etc........and that number is certainly debateable!

 

[Lousyweather]

3 straight days of burning. Burgandy and light brown curtains
You dont make it a habit to check your curtains color or your marbles color or go to the far side of your house to look at your siding.This all happened in less than 3 days.It was early Jan when stove was installed.We were all excited and learning the stove.The last thing on our mind was this unit was installed wrong.It never crossed our minds that behind the insert the pipes were never sealed.It never crossed our minds the outside pipe wasnt cailked.Can you tell that your curtains are slowly turning a different color? We didnt and I guess we just arent as observant as you are.The bottom line THIS GUY DID A chitty JOB and Harman could careless.This is the issue not the fact that it took us few days to final fugure out something was wrong.God knows how much crap myself,wife and kids took in our lungs. I suppose we should have known this also.

does sound like a bad job for sure........but not Harman's...the dealer.

 

[Lousyweather]

I see a lot of Harman dealers here get complaints, I am one that complained about my Harman dealer and I have been hearing that a lot of people were complaining about this dealer, Country Stoves and Fireplaces in Bear Delaware. Stay away from these guys, they lost Harman and Quadrafire and can no longer sell them. I made a complaint on the Harman web site and I guess a lot of other people did since they lost them as a dealer. I am now dealing with Angerstein's in Wilmington DE, from what I have been told by them everyone who comes in for help on their Harman stove purchased from Country Stoves has complained about them. They say they will take care of my issue and I hope they do, my stove is down until the crack in the auger tube gets fixed.

bad dealer? probably. BUT, Ive never heard of a Harman dealer losing their dealership due to anything but money issues. Dont pay Harman, they cut you. One of my competitors is awful in their dealing with customers, but they pay their bills, and, to this day, are still a dealer...they are just lucky they are in a largish city. In fact, they are one of our best salespeople! I get more folks in telling us they hate them than anything....does harman do anything>? No