Opinons Please... Enviro Empress or St Croix Hastings

[janvankan]

Hi all! I’m looking to get my first pellet stove to heat a downstairs bonus room (converted garage) I have narrowed it down to the Enviro Empress or the St Croix Hastings. The store that carries them both hands down recommends the Enviro. He said they have only carried the St Croix for about a year and in that time have had repair issues and haven’t been very happy with the company while they rarely have problems reported with the Enviro. When I look online though at customer reviews, the opposite seems to be true. There is about a $700 price difference. Can anyone out there speak to these two brands? or either of these brands? I’m so confused
Thanks!

 

[kykel]

I think your in the right place here. Hopefully enviro owners will chime in. I just bought the M55 cast fs and I love it. Its only one opinion but hopefully you'll get many from both sides. Usually customer reviews consist of unhappy people. The happy ones dont usually respond in my opinion

well good luck

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I'm confused as to who is having the repair issues the dealer or the customers of the dealer.

If the dealers is saying he gets more repair calls on the St. Croix than on the Enviro then what is the respective installed base of each and how well were the installs done on the brand they were least familiar with?

 

[Ironhorse74]

Hi all! I’m looking to get my first pellet stove to heat a downstairs bonus room (converted garage) I have narrowed it down to the Enviro Empress or the St Croix Hastings. The store that carries them both hands down recommends the Enviro. He said they have only carried the St Croix for about a year and in that time have had repair issues and haven’t been very happy with the company while they rarely have problems reported with the Enviro. When I look online though at customer reviews, the opposite seems to be true. There is about a $700 price difference. Can anyone out there speak to these two brands? or either of these brands? I’m so confused
Thanks!

Would you be so kind as to tell me the dealer? Efficiency between the two is almost exactly the same. Hopper is 15 pounds more capacity on the Empress. The Hastings has 5,000 btu's more heat. Should be about 700 dollars less money.

The distributor that cover California for Enviro stopped stocking the Empress. They were only available on early buy. My guess is that your local dealer stocked up on Empress' and needs to move them.

Brad

 

[janvankan]

Hmmm interesting. I had the installer come out and take a look at my set up , he is also the owner of the store. I told him I liked the St Croix but that his sales person talked it down in favor of the Enviro Empress. He said that there were some things about the St Croix that he would like to see improved but that the innards of the stove were solid. He said customers who bought it seemed to like it. He didn't seem to know why the sales guy
was reluctant to sell it. He's going to price it out for me and he added in the Avalon Arbor he though would work well for me. I'm going to take a look at the Arbor but I think right now I'm leaning toward the St.Croix. $700 is a lot of money!

 

[imacman]

IMO, after seeing some Enviro stoves in action, I would recommend them, hands down. They make a VERY nice stove.

 

[BradH70]

Hey janvankan, what stove did you eventually go with? I'm interested in these stoves as well but having a hard time deciding.

Thanks.

 

[janvankan]

This probably won't help you but.... I decided to go with the St. Croix Hastings. I had a time frame I was working with since I was having guests. First thing that happened was instead of shipping in 2 days it was going to be 4 weeks. That wouldn't work. One of the hearth.com members was able to track one down for me at a distributor and it was supposed to ship right away to my store. It didn't. It took until the following week to ship. I was still okay with my time frame but barely. Then it sat somewhere before it made it all the way to my store. Then it was broken. As in it was in several pieces. Through the process no one would respond to questions of what the status was. I stood there while my store called and left messages that were never returned. The whole experience was a nightmare. The store finally said up to you but we have an Avalon Arbor in the warehouse that we know will work and isn't broken. They gave it to me for the same price so I ended up with that. I'm sure the St Croix guy that's on here will chime in but based on my shipping fiasco and the inability of my store to get any answers along the way, I'd be hesitant on the St Croix. If they can't answer a simple "where exactly is the stove" it makes me wonder what would happen if you needed service. The Avalon is great by the way!

 

[BradH70]

Thanks for the reply. Sorry to hear you such a lousy time with the St. Croix. I would imagine that this could happen with any stove dealer/manufacturer when you are trying to get something they don't have in a hurry. I'm in no rush and going to allow myself plenty of time to make a decision and order the stove. Sure, I would rather buy one that I know the dealer has in the back room waiting to be loaded on a truck, but if I have to order one, no big deal, I can wait the extra week or two or three or four.

I will check out the Avalon for sure. At this point, I want to look at every stove that is available in my area.