PE Pacific Insert Not Bullet-Proof

[Sisu]

My welds are fine, but the metal is cracked. The fire box has a crack on the top left, and the door lip on the top left is cracked on through in the same area. My baffle looked fine a few weeks ago when I cleaned the stove.

May I suggest we create a sticky for this, for the next month or so. Many people have been gone all summer and may not see it. Also put your purchase date in your post so can see if it may be a bad batch of stoves. Mine was purchased in August of 2007.

That seems almost identical to Hog's and my pictures. Similar problem areas. I would take a wire brush, like Hog did originally, to the internal welds (if you haven't done so already) to clean them up. I didn't get to see the full extent of the internal cracks, until I did so. The four winters of burning was hiding alot under the crud build up.

 

[karl]

The funny thing about this is, when I first bought this stove, I was looking at the door lip and thought to myself,"How can you have right angles like that and put them under an expansive load and not expect them to crack?" I dismissed my concerns because it seems every stove is made that way.

I have a background in aviation, and we know that right angles create stress points and something will give eventually. The first pressurized passenger plane ever built start breaking apart in flight. After six of them crashed in a very short period, they all were grounded. The problem was that they had square window frames. The frames were put under stress when the plane was pressurized and the metal cracked at the stress point (the righ angles of the window frames). Now all pressurized airplanes have rounded windows. Infact, there are no right angles anywhere in the pressure vessel. Everything, is some degree of a curve. This allows the load to be passed though it evenly. The same thing applies to concrete, except they cut expansion grooves in it instead of making it rounded. An "L" shaped piece of concrete will always crack where the inside angle is. If you have a door in the corner of a room. The drywall cracks from the inside edge of the door to the ceiling for the same reason.

 

[jqgs214]

Well finally checked my stove, all the problem areas you guys have seem fine on my stove, but I do have a small crack on an interior weld, not something that compromises performance in any way and does not lead to an air source. Since its a lifetime warranty I'm not pursuing it at this time, dont even have a dealer since I got my straight from a distributor in my last warranty war. Just thought everyone would want to know I have a crack too.

 

[bren582]

That's a great point on rounded versus angled cornering in the manufacturing proces. I have a cast iron insert and noticed most corners and edges around the firebox body are rounded or radius to some degree versus 90deg angles. Not sure if the manufacturer does that as normal for a casting but I would imagine that stress relief comes into play especially when dealing with expanding/contracting cast iron. Steel must also expand a contract but I always imagined it would do it better versus cast iron..

 

[Sisu]

Well finally checked my stove, all the problem areas you guys have seem fine on my stove, but I do have a small crack on an interior weld, not something that compromises performance in any way and does not lead to an air source. Since its a lifetime warranty I'm not pursuing it at this time, dont even have a dealer since I got my straight from a distributor in my last warranty war. Just thought everyone would want to know I have a crack too.

Did you wire brush the internal welds? Take some pictures and post them too, if possible. Like I wrote previously, I didn't get to see the full extent of the cracks until I cleaned things up a bit. I even missed seeing the cracked steel on the door rim. however that wasn't a cleaning issue. I did a double take on the second set of pictures I took. The flash on the camera made it stand out.

I still haven't heard from PE. What about you Hog?

 

[BrotherBart]

This thread got me curious. My old insert has the "knife edge" welded into the door frame like the PE stoves have. And a 3/8" top plate and 1/4" body like PE purports to have. I say purports because the Summit insert I looked at the local stove store the other day damn sure wasn't 3/8" on top.

I still have the old stove, that was fired regularly to temps that pegged the thousand degree scale on the old Rutland thermometers and eventually cracked the top back of the firebox from banging N/S splits into the back of the unlined firebox. I went out in the back forty today and took a look at it. Not one crack around that door frame.

Something ain't right here with those stoves guys. You guys aren't burning them anywhere near as hot as I burned that old dog.

 

[Hogwildz]

This thread got me curious. My old insert has the "knife edge" welded into the door frame like the PE stoves have. And a 3/8" top plate and 1/4" body like PE purports to have. I say purports because the Summit insert I looked at the local stove store the other day damn sure wasn't 3/8" on top.

I still have the old stove, that was fired regularly to temps that pegged the thousand degree scale on the old Rutland thermometers and eventually cracked the top back of the firebox from banging N/S splits into the back of the unlined firebox. I went out in the back forty today and took a look at it. Not one crack around that door frame.

Something ain't right here with those stoves guys. You guys aren't burning them anywhere near as hot as I burned that old dog.

I', almost positive thats a 3/8" top plateBB.
See attached photo. Just for reference, the bolt to the right is a 1/4" bolt. You can see the top plate is at least 1/8" thicker than the bolt.
I am avoiding toughing, looking at the insert until I hear back from dealer & PE. Trying not to get upset so far. Although inside, I am very.

 

[BrotherBart]

Get that 30 in the addition saddled up. You are gonna need heat real soon ole buddy.

 

[Dix]

Hogz, I agree with BB, get that NC in there.

Take a breath or 2, and exert some energy else where, Japtain Jack Sparrow

From my experience with warranties, corporate mumbo jumbo, this is "going to be bumpy ride" :roll:

 

[Hogwildz]

Well, funny you say that, I was re-contemplating it again today.
I am thinking I will prolly pull the Summit, Either way its going to have to be removed to repair or replace.
I would order the fan for the 30. Lowes only has the fan for the 13, and Im thinking its too small for the 30?
Is there anywhere that has the fan on sale? BB, do you have the side shields mounted on yours for a hearth install? Can you please post a photo again of your install?
I'm thinking to reuse the liner I have, I might have to set it back into the old fireplace firebox. Do I have to have a "T"?
If I put the 30 in the fireplace, I'll need another stove for the addition. Was looking through the local Paper Shop sellit kinda paper today, and look what I found. If its in good shape, looks like a good deal.....
Might be better suited for the addition.

Category: Heating & Plumbing
HEARTHSTONE PHOENIX WOOD STOVE
cast iron, w/soap stone finish, EPA stove, 20-logs, 60,000 BTU, over $2500. new, sell $850.

 

[BrotherBart]

I am not so sure that the 30 will fit in your fireplace Hog. I had to have the six inch legs to squeeze mine in. For sure hang onto that great liner in that chimney. I just used a thirty degree stainless elbow and went from the liner into the stove so cleaning is done just like a insert.

I don't know that you need the shields. They seem to convect a lot of heat up and then the blower blows it out of the fireplace. But the fireplace side walls probably do the same job. ESW is probably the best bet for the fan. I keep and eye out and haven't seen a better price anywhere else.

Here it is installed and when I pulled it to put the shields on it.

 

[karl]

better pics

 

[karl]

d better pics

 

[Hogwildz]

I am not so sure that the 30 will fit in your fireplace Hog. I had to have the six inch legs to squeeze mine in. For sure hang onto that great liner in that chimney. I just used a thirty degree stainless elbow and went from the liner into the stove so cleaning is done just like a insert.

I don't know that you need the shields. They seem to convect a lot of heat up and then the blower blows it out of the fireplace. But the fireplace side walls probably do the same job. ESW is probably the best bet for the fan. I keep and eye out and haven't seen a better price anywhere else.

Here it is installed and when I pulled it to put the shields on it.

Thanks BB, when ya get a chance, do me a favor and measure your stove height from floor to top of collar. I have the 9" legs, if it takes 6" to make it work, I'll buy them when I order the fan.

 

[Hogwildz]

Called the selling dealer today. He acknowledged he received by file I left for him.
He advised he is just getting done moving everything back from the fair. And has gave PE a heads up. He is going to mail everything to them. He said "They will handle all the warranty work".
Didn't say anything one way or another about anything else. As I knew when I bought it. He just wants to make the sale. And really, I can't fault him, its business.
As long as he gets it off to PE, I'm ok with that at this point. Kind of pointless going through dealer, but thats what they want.
I asked him to keep me in the loop. He said he would, and also said I'll prolly be hearing from PE. Yeah, when?
Not sure the 30 will fit in my firebox. I'm gonna have to pull the surround off and get a vertical measurement. Its going to be real close if it fits at all.

 

[BrotherBart]

29 inches to the top of the flue collar with six inch legs Hog. If you have less than the 31" high opening that I have it would be a bear to try to get it done and the blower would be blowing into the back of the lintel.

Were it me I would massage a little furnace cement into the cracks on the Summit and use it until you find out what the score is if you can't fire up the 30 in the addition and move some air around.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

The funny thing about this is, when I first bought this stove, I was looking at the door lip and thought to myself,"How can you have right angles like that and put them under an expansive load and not expect them to crack?" I dismissed my concerns because it seems every stove is made that way.

I have a background in aviation, and we know that right angles create stress points and something will give eventually. The first pressurized passenger plane ever built start breaking apart in flight. After six of them crashed in a very short period, they all were grounded. The problem was that they had square window frames. The frames were put under stress when the plane was pressurized and the metal cracked at the stress point (the righ angles of the window frames). Now all pressurized airplanes have rounded windows. Infact, there are no right angles anywhere in the pressure vessel. Everything, is some degree of a curve. This allows the load to be passed though it evenly. The same thing applies to concrete, except they cut expansion grooves in it instead of making it rounded. An "L" shaped piece of concrete will always crack where the inside angle is. If you have a door in the corner of a room. The drywall cracks from the inside edge of the door to the ceiling for the same reason.

Stoves aren't pressurized.

 

[Sisu]

Here are new additions to the timeline:

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - Morning: I sent an email to the PE contact (that my dealership contact had forwarded my information to), along with the second set of photos that I took and posted in this thread. This is what I wrote:

"I have yet to hear from PE and I am wondering if there has been any movement in regard to my warranty claim. I have attached some more pictures of the cracked firebox, after I cleaned up the internal areas.

Please let me know what is happening and if you require any more information. I would like to get this matter resolved in a timely fashion, as the weather is getting colder."

Afternoon: I called PE, since I didn't get a response to the email. In my discussion with PE, I found out that I did not send the email to PE after all. It was a distributor for PE. The PE rep stated that since I live in Ontario, I have to deal with this distributor for warranty claims. The PE rep then gave me the phone number for the distributor, which I called right after. I spoke with a distributor rep who dealt with warranty claims (he was not the one I emailed) who assured that I would get a response. So now I am dealing with a third party, to complicate matters a bit more.

Thursday, October 8, 2009 - Still no reponse from the distributor/PE. This morning just around 10:30 am, I dropped by the dealership headquarters for the first time for a face to face chat and to pick up the baffle. As I stated previously, the local dealer closed, so the dealership headquarters location is a bit less convenient (30 minutes away vs the local dealer who was 5 minutes away). Luckily because of work, I was in the general area today.

I spoke to another employee there (since the person who I was in contact with was busy with customers). He was aware of my warranty claim, but I explained in detail the issues and how I had not yet received any response from the distributor. He did agree that the distributor is certainly taking their time and explained that his (the dealership's) hands are tied, until the distributor makes a decision and gives them direction. He also asked if I had overfired the stove, which I again stated again that I was not aware of overfiring it and explained my previous discussions with the local dealership (refer to my previous posts for details). He agreed that I should be frustrated with the lack of response, and that the lack of response from the distributor was making the dealership look bad. He took my contact information, saying that he will personally light a fire under the proverbial buttocks of the distributor to get an answer. He explained that usually the stove would be removed and taken to a welder for rewelds, cleanup and repainting. We both agreed to leave the baffle at the dealership, since it wasn't going to serve a purpose until the cracked welds issue is dealt with.

Like Hog said, the warranty process is not the dealership's fault. They are in the business of making sales and have to follow whatever process the manufacturer gives them. It is the distributor and/or PE who has the responsibility to deal with the warranty, and to direct the dealership as per whatever decision is made. My understanding now is that the distributor is the party at fault, due to the lack of response. I still have not any response from them in regard to my warranty claim.

So another baby step has been taken. Hopefully it wasn't backwards...........

 

[Sisu]

The funny thing about this is, when I first bought this stove, I was looking at the door lip and thought to myself,"How can you have right angles like that and put them under an expansive load and not expect them to crack?" I dismissed my concerns because it seems every stove is made that way.

I have a background in aviation, and we know that right angles create stress points and something will give eventually. The first pressurized passenger plane ever built start breaking apart in flight. After six of them crashed in a very short period, they all were grounded. The problem was that they had square window frames. The frames were put under stress when the plane was pressurized and the metal cracked at the stress point (the righ angles of the window frames). Now all pressurized airplanes have rounded windows. Infact, there are no right angles anywhere in the pressure vessel. Everything, is some degree of a curve. This allows the load to be passed though it evenly. The same thing applies to concrete, except they cut expansion grooves in it instead of making it rounded. An "L" shaped piece of concrete will always crack where the inside angle is. If you have a door in the corner of a room. The drywall cracks from the inside edge of the door to the ceiling for the same reason.

Stoves aren't pressurized.

That may be true to a certain extent. I think under normal operation, a wood stove may be under negative pressure, since oxygen is being consumed and air is being drawn into the unit. However, the negative pressure is probably very low. Whuffing is another issue, dealing with excessive postive pressure, but is not normal operation for a wood stove.

Regardless, there are other far greater stresses that the stove material experiences, mainly temperature related expansions and contractions, and the compression of the door to the door frame. Either way, the physics of steel still apply. Sharp right angles in steel that is under stress will crack, which is why 90 degree angles should always be slightly rounded.

 

[madison]

In conversations in the past with a local dealer regarding warranty work, he generalized that warranty work with all wood stove mfg's is a pain, and the dealer has to essentially provide the labor and parts, and then fill out the paperwork to get reimbursed for the parts.

I am not saying the above is true, only relaying what I was told. And this may not be unique to wood stoves, but could explain the delays. The dealer is not going to front you the new stove only to find out that the distributor and mfg are not going to reimburse the dealer. And so relationships between all the involved parties could potentially affect the response time.

Last yr it took ~ one month to get a boost manifold replaced ...

 

[Hogwildz]

I spoke with the selling dealer this morning.
Just returned from the market, and had a voice mail from Corie at PE.
I called back and got his voice mail. So far, the response time in my situation has been pretty good.
Now I hope he calls back while I am here. I have read that almost any consumer product that you have to with deal warranty claims through the distributor, takes a while, as the distributor does not have much motivation to move fast.

BB, I'm pretty sure I don't have the 29". I have not pulled the surround off again yet, but I'm pretty sure the bottom of old fireplace to lentel is 29". ;(
It does open back up to the old damper area once past the lentel, but that means I would have to get the stove in with no legs, lift it, support it, install legs, and then most likely make a plate to redirect the air from fan down past the lentel. The block off plate sits about an inch or two higher than the lentel. Sounds like too much hassle to bother with.
I'll wait and see what PE says. I will prolly have to pull it to get it repaired. I will ask my welder neighbor to look at it first, but I'm starting to thinking welding it where it sits is not realistic.

 

[Dix]

Hogz, you have oil for back up, if I remember right?

I took mine apart the other day (shoulda took picks, lol !!). All is okey doke as far as I can see.

 

[BrotherBart]

Oh how I remember this kind of adventure. Found the crack in the old stove in late September and kept trying to patch it and ended up in October realizing it had to be replaced. Fast. No backup heat around here. Got lucky with an unusually warm November and December. Especially when the new stove had a defect.

Man that was a race I don't ever want to run again. I feel your pain Hog. At least oil is down in cost. But I know you don't give a damn, you want wood burning in the joint.

 

[Sisu]

Update:
Friday, October 09, 2009

I just received an email this morning from my dealer contact:

This is the email I received from ### [the distributor]. Please remove the unit as quick as possible and we can get it over to a welder to get it repaired.

Thanks so much for your time.

I just got off the phone with him and he said that I need to remove the stove and get it to their dealership for the repair. He stated that if they were to remove it, I would have to pay for the labour. As today is a bit short notice and I need to seek extra manpower, I asked if I could bring it in tomorrow. But according to him Saturday is not good, since they will only have the sales reps working. So it looks like Tuesday is the only realistic day (Monday is the Thanksgiving holiday for us) after work to bring it in. I also asked if they are going to do a thorough inspection of the firebox, to ensure that there are not additional cracks. He sounded a bit reluctant to that request, so I will have to be very explicit as to making them aware of the locations of the cracks and will have to inspect the work thoroughly, once conducted.

Also, I asked about how long the repairs will take and he couldn't give a timeline, other than stating that they shouldn't take too long. He then asked if I had a gas furnace, which I stated yes. I also reiterated that I am spending additional money on gas, while the stove is not in operation. He also explained is that they pay upfront for the work and then bill the distributor, which is something other posters have also stated and a possible reason for a lot of foot dragging.

However, here is where things get a bit interesting. I noticed that in the email that he had sent to me, it had the previous correspondances in a thread, starting with my initial email on September 28. According to the time/date stamps, the dealer contact did not forward my email to the distributor until October 1, after I had called that day to ask if he had received any response from the distributor and after I had sent the online form query to PE asking if the warranty claim had been received.

Also the distributor responded on Wednesday, October 08 stating:
"Hi #### [dealer contact]

Please forward a quote to weld this unit

Thank you,"


So according to the email thread, the dealer contact failed to email or telephone me on Wednesday, October 08 that the distributor had a response. More importantly, the dealer contact failed to tell me this yesterday, even though he saw me at the dealership and he was told that I was there to see him. He did not take a momentary break from dealing with a customer to make sale, which I am sure he could have (I was at the store for about 25 minutes). If I had known sooner, I could have had the stove out and in their hands before the weekend.

So now it seems, that the dealership contact was negligent too, in his duties. On top of that, his tone over the phone today was one of annoyance. He seems somewhat new at being a salesman. Hopefully, he will learn that a good business not only depends on sales, but on continued customer service too after the sale.

On another note, I still have not received any direct contact with the distributor or PE. No one, other than the dealership, asked me if I had overfired the unit etc. Also, no one came to inspect the stove. I also have to ask if lifetime warrany applies to the repaired firebox.

I will keep you posted on the future developments.

 

[Hogwildz]

I got a call from Cory at PE. He was nice and had a pleasant attitude.
We discussed the problem of the cracks, he said they could be welded. And he would contact the dealer & advise what actions the dealer needs to make next.
In my experience so far, PE has responded promptly, and Cory has acknowledged I have a legit concern. Sounds like they are going to handle it.
But sounds like it must be set up by dealer. I have more faith in PE than the dealer, but am keeping an open mind and giving the dealer the benefit of the doubt right now.
I was hoping to remedy this without having to pull this heavy beast from where she rests. Not sure that is a reality. Getting it in by myself what hard enough, but at least it was all downhill. No to remove, get out of the house and into the truck is all uphill. I'll prolly get some help I hope.
So far, I stand behind my decision of a PE Summit.