The new lopi cape cod
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Between those, go woodstock every time. My experience with hearthstones is that they are not made for primary heating. Mine was shot after 30 cords. I have discovered that a cat stove makes a superior heater for full time wood heat.
Hate to muddy the waters, but I wanted to answer your original post. I installed a Cape Cod last summer and love it. I know one other person has had an issue, which I have no reason to doubt. I heat an "L" shaped 2400 sq ft, hundred year old, farm house. It's easy to control, has 10 hour burns with good wood and is beautiful to look at. All of the recommendations are probably great stoves. Get what you (and your significant other) like and enjoy it.
Holzwurm
Member
I'll have to second Doc21! We bought our cape cod last year. We are very happy with it. We had an intense winter in the Detroit, MI area, breaking the record for snowfall from 1891 or so. We burned about 4-4.5 cords for a 2000qft home with a walk-out basement of the same size. I just got done cleaning the chimney and went through the whole stove. Nothing cracked, and hardly any soot. The SS baffle did bend, and I installed a new one, which I got from Travis under Warranty. Also if you are not retired and super busy, the GREEN START is a great feature. Especially in the shoulder season, when you only need a small fire in the morning, you can load the stove at night. First thing in the morning you push the button, and go make coffee. Then came back with the coffee to a blazing fire! No smoke from newspaper etc. I wouldn't give as much weight to guys' opinion on here that get a new stove every 1 or 2 years. They have to complain about their last stove, so they can justify getting the one they now have. (Just IMHO)
I'd like to think I have helped a lot of people with my experiences with different stoves. I don't ever need to get a new stove, I enjoy it. Its my chosen career and hobby...
I take that back, the Cape Cod is the ONLY stove I've had to replace.
As noted earlier, Travis changed foundries for the Cape Cod to Europe. It could be that experiences with early units is not representative of the current production line.
Parallax
Minister of Fire
My wife and I had fallen in love with the look of the Cape Cod and were probably going to buy one. But then I found this website and am really glad we steered clear. We wound up buying the Blaze King Ashford, a thing of real beauty in terms of both looks and design. It's got a steel box surrounded in a cast iron sheath which gives it a traditional look, much like the Cape Cod. But it has a far more tested and reliable design and, like other BKs, it achieves super-long burn times. We've run ours 26 hours without reloading on what passes for "hardwood" in the Pacific Northwest. It's far more efficient than the Lopi, running hot on very little fuel. Webby warned me that he was making three or four trips to the CC for every trip to the Ashford, both of which were running simultaneously. I very much appreciate the knowledge I've gained from listening to Webby, Begreen and others on this site.
Perhaps the Cod would have held up and perhaps we would have been happy. Certainly it would have been beautiful. But I'm glad we had a chance to consider all the input and make a choice far beyond our own pay grade.
By the way, the final nail in the coffin with Lopi came when I contacted them. They were reluctant to talk to me at all, preferring to steer me back to the dealer. It was difficult to get through to anyone knowledgeable about anything and impossible to speak with someone who understood and could address the engineering of the stove. I kept getting routed to this woman who was all about PR. She did not take my concerns seriously, such as the reported warping of baffles. She denied there were any problems. Eventually, she said she would talk to the engineers. But then she never got back to me. I'm an attorney with a good sense of when people are being straight and when they're not. My sense was the ethics of their company were questionable.
With Blaze King, my experience has been exactly the opposite. Just the other day I was on the phone with Chris, who posts here as BKVP. He very patiently answered my questions and walked me through the steps necessary to check the condition of my stove's cat, the door seal and the adjustment of the bypass plate. When the bypass plate didn't seem as tight as it could be, he walked me through the steps necessary to fix it. When we were done, my hands were covered in soot. He joked about certifying me as a technician. He answered all my questions and helped diagnose the reason we're getting a bit of smoke in the house. If the dealer wasn't willing to work with me, he would have called them on my behalf.
The only people I could talk to at Lopi weren't qualified to walk me through anything technical. Their skill was in talking nonsense. And they just wanted to route me back to a dealer that unable or unwilling to address my questions.
Perhaps the Cod would have held up and perhaps we would have been happy. Certainly it would have been beautiful. But I'm glad we had a chance to consider all the input and make a choice far beyond our own pay grade.
By the way, the final nail in the coffin with Lopi came when I contacted them. They were reluctant to talk to me at all, preferring to steer me back to the dealer. It was difficult to get through to anyone knowledgeable about anything and impossible to speak with someone who understood and could address the engineering of the stove. I kept getting routed to this woman who was all about PR. She did not take my concerns seriously, such as the reported warping of baffles. She denied there were any problems. Eventually, she said she would talk to the engineers. But then she never got back to me. I'm an attorney with a good sense of when people are being straight and when they're not. My sense was the ethics of their company were questionable.
With Blaze King, my experience has been exactly the opposite. Just the other day I was on the phone with Chris, who posts here as BKVP. He very patiently answered my questions and walked me through the steps necessary to check the condition of my stove's cat, the door seal and the adjustment of the bypass plate. When the bypass plate didn't seem as tight as it could be, he walked me through the steps necessary to fix it. When we were done, my hands were covered in soot. He joked about certifying me as a technician. He answered all my questions and helped diagnose the reason we're getting a bit of smoke in the house. If the dealer wasn't willing to work with me, he would have called them on my behalf.
The only people I could talk to at Lopi weren't qualified to walk me through anything technical. Their skill was in talking nonsense. And they just wanted to route me back to a dealer that unable or unwilling to address my questions.
Didn't you have a Dutchwest once?
You can't expect them to ever admit the there's a problem, because then they lose their ace in the hole, "operator error/abuse." There's a lot to be said for having the backing of a good company. Also, if your dealer is good, they may be able to get results from the company, where a customer can't. Shouldn't be that way, but who knows, maybe they really are that busy that they don't have time. Or maybe their VPs are out playing golf.
I think some problems are the result of abuse. Some people seem to think that a stove is made to hold fire so it's OK to just fire the hell out of it. I tend to baby my stoves, so probably wouldn't have some of the reported problems.
Parallax
Minister of Fire
There's no question in my mind their customer service sucks. I've dealt with them and I've dealt with Blaze King. The folks at Blaze King have been great. Lopi wouldn't even let me speak with someone who could intelligently answer my questions. Their attitude was, "If you're not drooling over our stove, piss off."
I've got to call B.S. on this. I've called Lopi and have had nothing but a positive experience. The only reason I called was due to the negative reviews of one member of this board. I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm grumpy and have no tolerance for terrible customer service. Lopi was great and put me in touch with someone who clearly worked in an engineering capacity. People need to realize that some folks are paid to post reviews on the internet. Take everything you read with a grain of salt. A wood stove isn't some kind of engineering marvel like the space shuttle. Wood releases a certain amount of energy . . . that is all.
Parallax
Minister of Fire
You're calling B.S. on my experience? What does that even mean? Are you suggesting I'm lying about what happened.
Look, I really don't care if you believe I'm telling the truth. I get that you don't like it but what I described is what happened. If they treated you better, I'm glad for you. Or at least I would be if you weren't being a jerk.
Look, I really don't care if you believe I'm telling the truth. I get that you don't like it but what I described is what happened. If they treated you better, I'm glad for you. Or at least I would be if you weren't being a jerk.
I have had no direct experience with Lopi customer service. We deal with the factory Rep. I was treated very poorly when I went to him with the issues I had. First with the Leyden and then with the cape cod. This ultimately led me to choose a Jotul as a replacement for the cod. When I bought the stove I took a huge gamble, a brand new stove that cost almost $4K! If I can't even get support from a factory rep on minor issues, what's it going to be like down the road?
Doc, no one is being paid to promote stoves on this board. If they are, they get quickly canned!
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