I went to the dealer today to purchase a mt vernon pellet stove and he told me it wouldnt be his first choice, actually he said it wouldnt be his choice at all. I had it narrowed down to a mt vernon,castile or harman xxv. Went with the mt vernon because i want to heat 2000 sq ft. He said that they were having trouble with them and said i would be better off with a 1200 quad. My wife and i like the looks of the other ones better. I guess now im confused. Any help with this would be greatly apprieciated. What have your experieces been with the mt vernon and wich one would you go with? pros and cons. Thank you.
Stove dealer told me not to buy mt vernon?
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webbie
Seasoned Moderator
Can you give the initials of the dealer - I may know them, and at least we could possible put some cred to them...or not. I don't keep up closely, but I thought the initial bugs were taken care of last season.
DavidV
New Member
I think that if you have a stove dealer who is willing to give you an honest reccomendation to not buy a product he is having trouble with, then you are lucky. I don't have any experience with the stoves mentioned but if the dealer warns you off one you have to decide if you trust this guy. if you do, look for a different stove.
MrWinkey
New Member
Did the dealer sell all both brands or only the Quad brand?
If he sold both maybe he is doing you a service and has noticed a problem lately?
Should he only sell the Quad I would think he might be trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
While your here re-considering your decsion you might want to punch your #'s into the fuel calc.
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/
If he sold both maybe he is doing you a service and has noticed a problem lately?
Should he only sell the Quad I would think he might be trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
While your here re-considering your decsion you might want to punch your #'s into the fuel calc.
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/
Here is part of the problem and it might not be the stove No dealer has a repair record with this mew model stove It requires software a lap top and a proprietary serial cable just to hook up into the stove to diagnose what is wrong. Dealers from old school may not have adapter to repairing these new stoves At first even dealers here were were recommending not selling the newest model Quadra-fire was charging the a considerable amount of money just for the soft ware and cable Many did not even know it existed till problems arose and the firmware needed to be upgraded Pretty hard to do when you do not have the program and lap top and cable You may have run into one of the old school dealers that does not want to sell you a product he has no history in repairing. Yes Quad has flashed the firmware on all existing model once they found out the fault. With this in mind the stove is a good stove great innovating features . many like the self clean other like that during a power outage a 12 volt battery can keep it running You might want to find a dealer willing to service that stove if you have your mind set if purchasing one
Good grief. Next thing you know when you call customer service the first thing they will be asking will be if you rebooted your stove!
Maybe that barrel stove kit ain't so bad after all. :coolsmirk:
Maybe that barrel stove kit ain't so bad after all. :coolsmirk:
Shane
Minister of Fire
I wonder if all of this is worth the complication? Kind of like Whitfield. Limit switches work beautifully for letting a stove know when flame is present or not, they just had to go with the photoeye though and look what it cost them. Another thing to consider is the abilities of service techs in the field. Many of these folks still run their businesses with general ledger sheets and an adding machine (nothing wrong with that) now requiring a laptop and proprietary cable in order to fix a stove? AUTOMOBILE industry anyone?
BrotherBart said:
no different than the car you drive $100 for the computer cost to tell you you have a warranty issue one can not touch anything electronic on a car without a computer to read error codes
YESS this stove is the same it has to be plugged into a computer with a diagnostic program to trouble shoot it and it require firmware flashes to its memory
Bb I still like hand crank up windows when the acuator cost 150 and the repair is 4300 to allow you to open a window
DriftWood
Minister of Fire
BrotherBart said:
You bet in a the years ahead even wood stoves will be chip controlled and running at 96% efficiency. And the only thing available will be these chip stoves.
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
elkimmeg said:
if thats a requirement and they are responsable for doing the service , the company should provide them with the tools, saying that they need all that to sevice the unit is a cop out , if the stove has to be connected to such a device then the dealer should be provided with it if they are not , then the manufacturer is at fault.
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
BrotherBart said:
BB our control boards can be rebooted, but you do not need IBM to do so, is done internally. just push the right buttons and you are done , kinda like "control-alt delete"on a PC. its not a common need though, usually only needed after the unit ran during a brown out , o was run through a bad outlet and didnt get clean 110 voltage.
stoveguy2esw said:
Cool. I only cold boot the 30 after it runs out of coals. With coals it is a warm boot.
Does rebooting the control board reset it to the factory defaults?
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
it resets the board to the boards test defaults, needs to be then reset for the model / mfg date defaults for that stove. its all buttons though , no "patches" no downloads, its all already in the chip.
The info I provided came directly from our own moderator MSG. Even he found out the hard way the manufacturer was charging the dealers an arm and a leg for the cable and software and if you had an apple lap top forget it the software would not even install it had to be windows xp
Hogwildz
Minister of Fire
BrotherBart said:
OK lets try these solutions sir:
Unplug your stove and keep uplugged for 1 minute. Plug in, is it working now?
Let me check the signal from here.............. 10 minutes later, "Hmm ok sir, no signal".
Do you have a router connected in line? We do not service routers, nor offer assistance. 2 minutes later........
Push the reset button............... nothing? 1 minute later...................
Sir... I'm going to put you on hold, and ask a level 2 tech to take over.......please hold 10 minutes later........
Yes sir.... My name is Habib, I will be offlering assistance through thiz part of de call.........
Check de hoppa and make surlll there iz pelluts...... 1 minute later.....
Whut brland of pelluts are zu uzing?
Iz the algur mulving?
Iz ze fira mechnizm cliking?
I am surry sirl, you wull have to scheule a reapair appoontment. Dial 1-800-you-suka
Have a nize day, click
Total time on hold & with 2 techs......... 1-1/2 hrs later.
High tech, the wave of the future. And outsourcing to boot.
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
Hogwildz said:
hog , we be southern , not foriegn lmao
i get calls , that start, i talked to a fellow last week , he had a southern accent...
reply: that really doesnt narrow it down much , we are all afflicted with the same accent down here.
ive endured, the "redneck stoveworks" comments in the past as well , usually laughing it off and asking , so where did you get your bachelors at? usually its not bad though
had one ask me what part of "new england" is "new england stoves located in?
reply , about an hour north of boston... south boston Va.
ya gotta keep it light
Does anyone have any advice as to what i should do, or any feelings towards any of these stoves?
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
SCHUDOGG said:
guess we got off track, i do not know a whole lot about the inner workings of quads, i do know that they are from what i have learned quality units , a quad model in 2005 won the vesta award at the hpba show (which is a quite an honor they dont hand them out for jollies) the suggestion by the dealer is troubling to me, you might look around and see if you have another dealer in your area, and strike up a conversation about the model you are looking at and see if you can get any info out of them about possible issues, he wont likely come out and say it , but you might get a feel about it chatting with him, suggest that you are looking at (the ones the other dealer mentioned )and see where it goes. wish i could help you more , the problems discussed in this thread are new info to me , i havent heard a peep about it , but im not in their market.
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
SCHUDOGG said:
and i will try to pester the gang into solutions as well, wish i could be more help
We can try to resist technology, but it ain't gonna work too well. The EPA is not going to cooperate in the effort. We could go back to axe, maul, saw bucks and buck saws. But, I sure do not want to! I will not fault a guy for using a chainsaws, hydraulic log splitter and not a user of computers, either. They all have their place.
Even at my age, I do not have a problem with dealing with PC issues. I can program my radios and my car. it should not be too difficult to set up for my pellet stove.
Jerry
Even at my age, I do not have a problem with dealing with PC issues. I can program my radios and my car. it should not be too difficult to set up for my pellet stove.
Jerry
The problem here is that the dealer is probably dealing with old information. But, he is also showing you a lack of willingness to support what is probably a fine product. As has been said it appears that the new stove problems were taken care of last season. But if that dealer's heart and head aren't into supporting the stove, to the point that he talks it down, then at the very least he is not the one you want to have to depend on for service for one of them.
As to the tech talk, yeah I know. I spent 33 year implementing the latest and greatest computer systems. Now I am kinda like the seaman who put a ships anchor in his wagon and searched for a placed where nobody knew what it was so he could retire there.
As to the tech talk, yeah I know. I spent 33 year implementing the latest and greatest computer systems. Now I am kinda like the seaman who put a ships anchor in his wagon and searched for a placed where nobody knew what it was so he could retire there.
Shane
Minister of Fire
I would be leary of anything that I couldn't work on as a consumer. I know that we have no choice when it come to cars etc., but with stoves we still have a choice. I don't think that I would think ill of quad if the cable connection were not proprietary but a simple USB and if thier software was available for FREE download on their site. Quad has always been kind fo technical. Remember the trouble shooting boxes for the firt generation stoves (1100i, 1000 etc.). I don't know if they gave that to us for free or if we had to buy it. Now though were talking laptops.
In order for this to work, I think there would have to be two levels of access. High level for the user and low level for service (with proprietary dealer access codes). This is the way many electronic devices are set up. (dvds, microwaves, etc.) Otherwise I could see where this could get become a support headache.
With user access to all options, there is the potential for a large amount of mis-setting. Then, who corrects the problem, especially if it leads to damage? What if this happens on warranty, whose responsibility is it? How do you know, if the user has tampered with the settings or if it is a fault of the unit?
With user access to all options, there is the potential for a large amount of mis-setting. Then, who corrects the problem, especially if it leads to damage? What if this happens on warranty, whose responsibility is it? How do you know, if the user has tampered with the settings or if it is a fault of the unit?
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