Does anyone know about the Lopi Leyden pellet stove??

[Sierranevada]

Hello Fire Community, Does anyone have a Lopi Leyden PS? My local dealer has a couple in stock priced at $2450. I like the looks of this stove, but haven't found any information on it in action. I've read several reviews of the Leyden wood stove. Seems like people are not happy with it mostly because the castings are not high quality (made in China).

My questions:
Are the castings important in a pellet stove, or is the outer shell mostly a style issue?
Does a cast body hold and radiate heat like a woodstove?
Are the guts of this stove the same as any of the other Lopi or Avalon pellet stoves?
Are Lopi pellet stoves as reliable as Quadrafire or Harman (the other options at this same dealer)?

Any thoughts on these issues would be most appreciated.

 

[webbie]

Travis industries pellet stoves are highly regarded. I know personally that the engineers and designers there did not want to have the problems that so many other companies did, so they actually spent a couple of extra YEARS bring their first pellet stoves to market. After all, they can't go betting their diverse business on Pellet Stoves, so it better work!

I'll let Rod or another member answer the "guts" question, but in general I think the Castings have little to do with the operation. And, cast and steel are similar in radiation. As far as the quality of the castings, you should be able to look and see that. A vast number of the castings on the market today are Asian made, so that in itself means little. It is the QC both at that end and this end that means something.

I have no relationship to Travis Industries currently, but I did sell their products from 1986 to 1998 (and my old store - new owners -still does), and I also did web consulting and promotion (helped create their web site for them, along with Gary Webster)...and I was more than impressed by the care they took in the factory. A simple, but telling, example is how hard they test their pellet stove blowers and fans......from what we hear on the board, I would guess that some makers just assume the new fans (which they buy from other vendors) are good. Travis does not!

See:
https://www.hearth.com/visit/travistrip/source/170sealmotors.html

and the next pic.

Impressive that they would have a couple employees that are doing this full time. You can also assume the finished product gets checked also.

Hmm, when those blowers go back to the vendors, do you think they scrap them? Inquiring minds want to know

 

[Shane]

The casting issue is that some people don't like anything that is not 100% american made. On the first run of the Leyden pellet stove the initial castings were sent back since they didn't meet spec. This could have happened to any american, chinese, european or martian foundry. The guts of the stove are almost identical to the larger Travis stoves. The fireback is a hardened ceramic refractory material rather than Travis' normal cast iron fireback. I burned one in the showroom last year before I quit my job and was impressed with it. Had I not quit I'd probably have swapped my Yankee out for the Leyden since I like it looks wise a lot better.