Top ten things dealers told me

[Bill]

TOP TEN THINGS DEALERS TOLD ME

Most of these responses were from the owner, the spouse, and a few were from employees.

1. You can put this stove right on the tile floor and I don’t know how close it can be to walls
2. You don’t need a stove adapter, the pipe goes right on top of the stove
3. This stove burns 12 hours
4. This model of stove cracks, buy this one
5. Guaranteed for life, even if you over fire it
6. Double wall pipe goes male side or ribbed side up
7. I don’t know the prices of the stoves, my son has the price list, but he will be in tomorrow
8. I don’t know what the other lever is for on the Dutch West
9. You can burn it with the doors open
10. On a stack thermometer the needle part that turns up is the stack temperature and the other side of the needle reads inside the stove temperature. (F @ C, yikes)

I don’t profess to be any genius but it sure is hard to make an intelligent decision when you’re fed bad advice. I am not insinuating that all stores do this, or that there are not very informed people in the business. But as you can see from the remarks above that some of these statements could cause a serious fire in your home. It pays to be an informed consumer. I never would have ended up with the stove I bought until I bumped into this forum. I have burned wood all my life, but I don’t think I mastered the art, but I will.

I am trying to do everything right, clean chimney, double wall interior SS pipe, aged wood, big stove, and I nice bottle of wine. I am looking at getting a 3 year supply of wood, I bought a moisture meter, Kevlar chaps, bump cap, ear protection, safety shoes, gloves, extra wooded land, two new saws, new splitter, and an ATV with trailer and winch to haul the wood out. So I am ready to get her did.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

1. sometimes true ( RAIS and some Jotuls)
2. Oftentimes true. Quad is the only line i sell that requires an adapter
3. Depending on the stove, they can go longer then 12 hours. Burn time is defined as the amount of time between start up and cold ash bed.
4. LOL sound advice. Mabey he needs to drop the line that cracks.
5. B.S.
6. Only in europe does the male side go up.
7. His son lost a sale i hope.
8. Once again, sounds like dad is filling in while son is playing golf
9. You can burn alot of stoves with the doors open.
10. Hmmmm mabey to many cocktails?

 

[MrGriz]

For those reasons, and others, I'm very glad that I found this site and took my time doing some research before I went out to buy my insert.

By no means are all dealers giving bad advice; like anything else, there are bad mixed with the good. Looking at MSG's response, you can see that there is some truth in just about 1/2 of the things you pointed out. Having the knowledge to separate the junk from the good stuff is a great tool when you're out doing your shopping and evaluating the stoves and dealers.

 

[Bill]

Unfortunately none of the statements were true, every question was stove specific, no generalizations at all.
Every question was about a specific item or one specific model of stove. I guess what I am trying to convey is I was given the wrong answer. What was apparent to me is they did not know there stoves very well and they did not read the owners manual. This list could have been much longer, probably the top 30 things the dealer said.

This was a random sampling of at least 10 different dealers, of which I asked about overall general performance of specific units and they sometimes could tell me very little about them.

These are questions I would ask the seller
1. What size logs does it take?
2. How big is the fire box?
3. How many Btu’s?
4. How much does it weigh?
5. What kind of feedback are you getting from owners of this unit?
6. What stove do you recommend and why?
7. How should I break in this stove?
8. At what temperature is over firing this stove?


.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Unfortunalty there are lots of ifs and butts when it comes to stoves. As soon as he said his son would have to look up prices that would be the biggest clue this guy didnt no what he was talking about. If he was just filling in for a afternoon, he got more right then we give him credit for. Granted this is no excuse. If the son wants the day off he needs to find qualified help, or, dont pretend that he knows what he is doing. He should have taken a name and number, look up the info, and called you back.

 

[fireboy]

#6 is true with Excel brand pipe. They recently changed the look of it but Excel DW connectors outer wall was ribbed (like SW crimping) and would fit with the visible crimps up covered by the next pipe up. What was really happening is the inner liner, which is crimped as well, was fitting on the inside of the joint below just like single wall but what you are actually looking at looked backwards. They recently changed it so that they no longer looked crimped and are just built smaller so that they fit correctly.

Not defending this guy as it seems they might be a bit disorganized but some things in that list could be correct.

Fire boy

 

[wg_bent]

I was told by a local dealerthat I knew far more about his stoves than he did. (in reference to the Morso 1410, 3610, and the entire VC line)

They guy asked me if I wanted to sell stoves. Given that stoves don't run linux (yet).... I declined. (it's entirely possible that some pellet stoves run an embedded linux, but I'm not aware of that)

 

[Corie]

I was told by a local dealerthat I knew far more about his stoves than he did. (in reference to the Morso 1410, 3610, and the entire VC line)

They guy asked me if I wanted to sell stoves. Given that stoves don't run linux (yet).... I declined. (it's entirely possible that some pellet stoves run an embedded linux, but I'm not aware of that)

I remember a dealertelling me that once when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I think I've said it before, but I used to make my mom take me to all the stove shops so I could look at the stoves and talk to the dealers. One of them was so blown away, I can still remember the look on his face when I said catalytic combustor.

I even used to carry around a little 3 inch circular piece of paper so that I could impress people with pellet stove technology by showing them how small the flue was. (Back in that days of the VC Reliant)

 

[wg_bent]

I was told by a local dealerthat I knew far more about his stoves than he did. (in reference to the Morso 1410, 3610, and the entire VC line)

They guy asked me if I wanted to sell stoves. Given that stoves don't run linux (yet).... I declined. (it's entirely possible that some pellet stoves run an embedded linux, but I'm not aware of that)

I remember a dealertelling me that once when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I think I've said it before, but I used to make my mom take me to all the stove shops so I could look at the stoves and talk to the dealers. One of them was so blown away, I can still remember the look on his face when I said catalytic combustor.

I even used to carry around a little 3 inch circular piece of paper so that I could impress people with pellet stove technology by showing them how small the flue was. (Back in that days of the VC Reliant)

A little known fact that the hearth scriptures predicted the coming of Corie back in the Carter administration.

 

[carpniels]

Corie,

That is scary. A 3 inch piece of paper at all times to show the diameter? It looks like someone was meant to work with stoves!

MSG,

Do all quads need adaptors? I have a local quad dealer and we talk a lot and he never mentioned it. I have the Isle Royale and my stove pipe fits fine (double wall SS). I just shoved it in there real hard and added 2 screws. Please explain.

Niels

PS. I also got offered a job selling stoves once when I was discussing stoves with a stove shop owner. I respectfully declined. They could never pay and engineers salary.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

not all quads, just the steel ones if you intend on using double wall pipe.