Hello all. I am currently looking to replace my wood stove (which is an old insert with a blower) with a new wood stove to heat my home. I am currently looking at a Regency f5100 that is an unused floor model at a store by me and the salesman has come down too 2750 out the door. Everywhere i call it lists for 3800-3900. I have a hard time finding reviews on this stove. I also asked about the difference between the 51 and 52 but he said there is no difference just updated the model due to regulations. Does anyone here have any first hand reviews with this stove? Thank You
Regency Pro Series f5100/5200
- Thread starter cleetus
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We have installed a few of them and the customers seem pretty happy. We haven't come across any issues with them yet.
And they were correct there were no changes. They just had to retest them for 2020
I have the Regency F5100 I purchased almost 2 years ago and installed by the company that sold it to me. Was very happy with it at first. However, after about four months of use, the CAT started to fail and deteriorate. It was determined by the company that sold me the wood stove and a Regency rep that there was too much draft created by my masonry chimney. The wood stove was installed in my basement of a two story home and my chimney is about 35' tall with a 12' x 10' flue. I was advised that the flue was too large for the wood stove and that I had to install a new 8" stainless steel liner. The liner was installed inside my existing flue from the wood stove to the top of my chimney. The Regency rep said that this would correct the issues with the CAT failing. After the new flue liner was installed and a new CAT installed in the wood stove, guess what..... same problem. The same Regency rep arrived again a couple months ago and couldn't tell me what was wrong. I am now getting questioned as to what type of wood I burn and how I am operating the wood stove. The Regency rep also said that I would probably have to buy a new CAT every couple of years. WHAT! Advertised with a 10 year warranty on the CAT and now I have to buy one every 2 years at over $500. Terrible. The Regency rep has not been calling me back. Almost two weeks ago I spoke with the owner of the company that sold me the wood stove and he said he was have lunch with the Regency rep that day and that he would call me back once he heard something. Still no calls. I am 45 years old and have been using wood stoves since a teenager. I know what I am doing. Very frustrating! I'm ready to yank this thing out of my basement and set it outside.
Did they test your draft? Did they install a damper or dampers to get your draft within spec? If not I am sure you are still overdrafting. But yes you will be replacing the cat every few years. 10000 hours to be exact.
Both the company that sold me the stove and the Regency rep have never mentioned testing the draft! How is the testing administered?
Stick a draft gauge either in the cat probe hole or a hole in the pipe with the stove burning on full air
The whole 10 year cat warranty is a marketing trick. Several companies have started making that warranty to compete with each other but the reality is that a cat is only rated for 10000-12000 hours of normal life and if you burn up those hours in 2 years then you need a cat every two years. If you burn every Saturday for a few hours then that cat might just last 10 years. See the trick? Oh and the warranty usually only covers the first cat so it's not worthless but I fear the unsuspecting cat stove buyer will expect an actual 10 years of service.
My current cat is up near 16000 hours and is ready to be replaced. They can keep functioning at greatly reduced performance for quite a while if you like gunked up flue, smoke, and wasted wood!
My current cat is up near 16000 hours and is ready to be replaced. They can keep functioning at greatly reduced performance for quite a while if you like gunked up flue, smoke, and wasted wood!
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I am 1.5 seasons into my cat, definitely have some crumble in the middle. I will attempt to get a free replacement at the end of this season, we'll see how that goes. I would be curious as to how the warranty cat replacement has went for others.
I think the warranties have been pretty standard...full replacement the first three years, prorated from year four through six. I've never called in a warranty. Before I got my wood drier, I crumbled some cats but they kept working.
Newburnerwisconsin
Feeling the Heat
$500 for a replacement combustor? Wow. I am not surprised with palladium prices continuing to move higher. It’s over $2000 an ounce now.
Our Regency F5200 was installed in 2019 before we moved into the home in 2020. So, this is the first full winter we have used it. So far, it has performed wonderfully. The combustor is remarkably effective at reducing smoke emissions and at leaving very little ash (indicating complete combustion) in the firebox. We have burned well-seasoned fir nearly 24/7 for 2.5 months now, and I removed firebox ash for the first time today. This is far more efficient than the non-catalytic/secondary burn EPA Certified Regency Medium stove we used for 20+ years in a different home. Time will tell how long the combustor lasts. But, given how much heat this stove extracts from well-seasoned wood, the savings on wood (at $250/cord in our area) may be worth the cost of replacing the combustor every couple of years, if necessary. We could not be happier with the stove.
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