Harman Delivery Dates

[thecoalman]

Hello wood people. Coal guy here, haven't posted much here but you may find this of interest. It appears there is developing story that Harman will not be able to deliver on many of the stoves promised to dealers.

(broken link removed)

Just a heads up and I don't know how severe this issue is.

 

[savageactor7]

Well props to them for not cutting corners and maintaining some semblance of quality control...if that's their plan. I can see some problems with alternate heating sources this year because of the escalating cost of conventional energy.

I've always been a believer in pellet stoves ...up until the housing market cratered. No lumber for houses no sawdust for inexpensive pellets.

 

[Metal]

I am surprised Harman didn't offer these customers stoves from their sister company, Quadrafire. Maybe Quad is having the same issues? I didn't see anywhere in the story that said the issues were related to quality control.

 

[thecoalman]

The issue isn't the quality, dealers made orders and pre-sold them based on Harman giving delivery dates for the units. I don't know what the wait time is now for wood or pellet stoves but if you want a coal boiler chances are you aren't getting it until late winter or spring. Any coal stove/stoker has at least a 4 to 8 weeks wait no matter what manufacturer it is. People ordered these units with expectations of having them and now they aren't getting them and there isn't going to be anything else for them to get either or the pickings are going to be very slim.

For example a Harman dealer posted in my forum he special ordered a stove in May, they gave him a delivery date of late June and now he's not getting it until March. He also ordered 40 other stoves shortly after that and was given a delivery date of early fall and now he's only getting 2.

In other words there is going to be a lot of people left holding the bag when there was other alternatives when they ordered stoves but there isn't going to be any now because all that stock is going to be gone too.

Edit: just to add there is some other issues too such as dealers who bought other things like flue pipe, pellets etc... I'd imagine there is even a lot of customers who have already purchased at least the fuel with the expectation of having a unit based on the dealers pre-selling them. I know on my forum there is few people that have coal right now and nothing to burn it in. LOL. One guy has 22 ton sitting there.

 

[weatherman]

Possibly in light of the heavy price increases in steel and parts, Harmen (HTI) decided not to eat the cost increases. Hard on dealers and customers.