Insurance Company requires Professional Install for New Wood Stove

[jensent]

When we installed our stove I checked with the city and with the insurance agent. City said no permit necessary. State Farm agent called the home office. He then came and took a picture or two and said that we did a good job. No increase in premium. I ran into two dealers that would not deliver a stove unless they did the complete installation. They both sold the same brand of stove and wanted between $1000 and $1500 plus materials. Needless to say we looked elsewhere for a stove. If your insurance company gives you a hard time maybe you should look for coverage from someone else.
Tom

 

[keydiver]

Was the same for me. Cost me $950 for install. They were done in about 3.5hrs, so I suppose they made pretty damn good money. BUT, they did a great job and honestly in 3.5hrs I would have still have been cutting a hole in the roof.

Now factor in. Business and liability insurance. Vehicle insurance and maintenance. Experience to do the install. Workmans comp if with an employee. If self inured they have their personal health insurance to pay. $950 did not go right into the installers pocket.

If all the money I make from being self employed went into my pocket Iwould have retired and in the islands years ago mon!

 

[fjord]

Dear Evil:

Insurance companies have Underwriters who determine what will and can be covered, what the specifications must be, and what coverage will cost. ASK for the Underwriter's specs.
Your CIO (Code Inspection Officer) also MAY have "to code" regulations for wood stoves. Ask for them.
Local fire departments may or may not even have safety specifications for wood stove installations. Ask the chief.
State Fire Marshals DO have safety requirements for all heating appliances. Online.
Finally, your stove manual has ALL the safety clearances, R needs for 3D protection, and flue requirements. Insurance Underwriters usually don't read every manual. Send them a copy.

So, if you do the install yourself following all the above requirements, they cannot tell you to do more, such as a "professional" installation. There is pride in doing it right yourself.

 

[btuser]

My insurance company has requested that a stove be installed by a pro as well.

They don't care if your house burns down. What they want is a record that there's someone they can sue if your house does burn down. So what if it costs you an extra $1,000, because they can't sue you when you burn down your own house.

 

[70marlin]

My insurance company has requested that a stove be installed by a pro as well.

because they can't sue you when you burn down your own house.

I concur!

 

[pen]

My insurance company has requested that a stove be installed by a pro as well.

because they can't sue you when you burn down your own house.

I concur!

Ugh! You guys just don't get it. (or at least I couldn't live by your point of view)

When you buy a car and it has a 36k mile engine warrantee, nowhere are you told that you MUST save every receipt for every oil change. At the time of the failure, there needs to be proof showing that the failure is due to your negligence not mech failure (i.e., no oil in the sump). It doesn't matter who changed the oil before the failure so long as there is no evidence to prove you didn't cause this through a lack of maintenance.

Aditionally, along this lines of thinking, every homeowner who loses their home to a chimney progressing to house fire would not be covered! It could very easily be argued that ANY chimney fire is the result of negligence due to poor wood / burning / cleaning practices. However, you never hear that.

The list of examples goes on and on. Where the heck are the insurance guys? Maybe it's too early in the season but there is usually one around.

Regardless, if you installed the stove and had it inspected and approved then it doesn't matter if your golden retriever installed the thing. If a fire were to happen, an investigation would insue, and so long as nothing has changed that would take it out of compliance, then the failure occured elsewhere. (in other words, not your fault)

BUT> despite this difference in philosophy where I would prefer to be on the offense whereas many people here are playing on the defense,,,,, I still think the simplest solution is to drop this Ins company. If they are giving you this hard of a time now, then you know they will be even more miserable when it comes to actually paying on a legit claim too. I'd switch even if i were having it professionally installed simply out of principle since this is a flaming hot crock of poo!


pen

 

[Evil Dave]

Our stove installation took a turn off-road that has indefinitely postponed this installation. The Chimney Sweep told me the current chimney isn't usable without some significant repair/replacement. Funny how our home inspection when we purchased the home in '93 never mentioned any problems with the chimney (I know that most home inspections are a joke, required and somewhat expensive but useless). I had never been to the rooftop to inspect the chimney as I didn't really need to know until now, after all it passed the home inspection right? Apparently at some point our masonry chimney had been removed down to the roof line and roofed over, later on someone decided to re-open the chimney and built a chase style chimney above the roof line and lined the entire chimney masonry portion and wooden chase portion with 2 single wall masonry liners for the entire height, the second one was for an old furnace vent at some point. So I need to recreate the missing 5' to 6' masonry chimney and reline it with a modern liner; or remove the existing ancient chimney for the full depth and install a new modern chimney in the same location . . . . . . err that is have my professional installer do this . . . either way it's more than I want to get into at this time and the removal and replacement is really what needs to happen as this old chimney really needs to go for other long term (100+ years) structural reasons. If I could have made it work safely for a few hundred dollars we would have done it now, even though it will be removed later on when we remodel the entire downstairs. As is, we'll wait and do it right later on. A 30% tax credit would have saved some cash but I'd have much more than that in my short term fix, much much more than that in my long term replacement. It's just not meant to be at this time as we are operating on 2/3 of "normal" income with wife out of work. I have no doubt we could make it pay for itself, but don't want to spend any of our rainy day fund to make this happen now.
In the course of my recent wood burning re-education I did purchase a Jotul Nordic to install in our small camping cabin I can still get my wood heat fix satisfied once I install that stove. Maybe when we eventually resurrect the home remodeling/stove project, Woodstock will have their new Fireview in production, it may be worth waiting for anyway! Thanks for the advice and insurance company sympathy. Too bad the previous owner didn't have my insurance company! He sure could have used a professional!

Dave

 

[pen]

I wonder if you could buy the stove now, store it and still get the tax credit? They'd have to come to your house to prove you didn't actually install it yet. Since you intend to I'd consider that.

It's a shame that you found what you did. I had virtually the exact thing happen w/ an unsafe thimble for my wood stove chimney after it had been installed by a professional and inspected by professionals. It took the good regular folk on here to help me become educated so that I could fix what the pro's couldn't do right.

Good luck and I can't wait to hear of your success once you can make everything come together.

pen

 

[Evil Dave]

My chimney sweep . . . (although I don't think he will be my sweep next time I need one, lets just say he didn't impress my wife in person, nor me on the phone) . . . . said he thought the unit had to be installed by the end of the year, of course he doesn't sell stoves so all his cash is from inspections and guess what . . . installations! However my little nightmare was more than he wanted to take on.
I'm sort of curious about the New design of the fireview. Those were among the first stoves I ruled out, but over the course of a month or so lurking here, for the way I want the stove to function (long and low burns) in my small house with the firebox size I think I need, they are likely my final conclusion. I was seriously considering a Jotul Oslo just to get the bigger firebox, but I think the Fireview with its soapstone walls and its darned ol' complicated stick-shift and clutch cat mechanism was a better choice for us, especially when you factor in what you can save from their current sale and the tax credit!

Hmmmm at least I know what length my firewood needs to be, I guess its time to start that woodshed project and laying up my wood now, I've got a white oak tree that was ripped down in a tornado-ish wind last spring, it fell on several smallish trees and between a few of its limbs and the trees beneath it, it's almost like I bucked it off the ground. It's about 6' in dia and about 75' tall/long. Time to get to work, by the time I get around to fixing my house/stove it'll be about perfect to burn.

 

[fjord]

Ask the UNDERWRITER.
Don need no stinkin "insurance guys". This is what's called common knowledge.
Insurance companies ALL use UNDERWRITERS to underwrite ( insurance concept ) coverage: legs, flues, stoves, breasts, homes, cycles, firearms,.................................................