hey guys, i have no problem with dealers or dealer based service , not everyone is handy with a tool. some folks just dont want to deal with the upkeep. whatever , different strokes, there is a market out there for that. pay the extra thousand dollars or so , and get the full service contract. its your money, and your choice. however, i suggest you shop for dealers just as diligently as you shop for stoves though in that market, as i stated earlier, there can be less than stellar dealers selling good products, you will also find outstanding dealers selling great products.
our market is not there for the folks who wish to have that level of service,(in house technical service) but wish to save the money and still buy a quality product. i see these things built every day, i know whats in them , i also know whats in the "premium brand" stoves (as far as motors and blowers and such in pellet stoves, refractories and such in woodstoves)i have personally had my hands on 8 years worth of englander stoves as i ran the quality assurance program for the company from 1993 through 2001. except for a weeks worth of vacation or so , every stove that left that factory was approved by me before it saw a box. needless to say its a personal thing with me. i learned about quality control from professionals in a job where not paying attention to detail got pilots killed. i took that commitment with me when i started working for ESW.
as for our service department , i have personally selected and trained most all of them. they will have worked for a minimum of 1 year(most more than that) in our assembly plant before being considered for my staff. they then recieve training in our labs as well as personal training with me. when they are done and know the stove line to my satisfaction , then they get a chair in my office. that means when a customer calls my office for assistance , they dont get an automaton reading from a script, they get a person who has spent his summers building the very units that are in the stores that winter, i have to give them back every spring as they are important to our manufacturing department when the line cranks up. they serve as section leaders and quality assurance techs making sure the next seasons units will be as solid as we can make them. they have a vested interest in this happening, cause if the stoves arent built right , they will hear about it the next winter when they come back to the service department. this is stressed constantly. even more importantly though , if they dont do the job in the building season , i'll nail their hide to my barn door!
personally, i use ESW stoves to heat my home exclusively. routinely , i leave my house for work with my family sleeping soundly and my stove running (i will say though in deferrance to the dealer who posted earlier , if i couldnt have an ESW product , i'd be first in line to get a harman, (they IMHO are excellent machines) but im prejudiced. i work for ESW. i also grew up with ESW heat, my parents used an ESW unit to heat their house when i was a child. its over 30 now and still burns as well as it did in 1977 when it was installed, blower still works, bricks are origional , only the door gasket has been changed. how many of you have a stove you can say that about?
bottom line is simple, its the bottom line. we dont build "cheap stoves" we build stoves that quality wise i'll put up against anything out there as far as performance and safety, and beat some, but i dont see losing to very many. throw in the price point, BTU for the buck, we win.
these are not foriegn built, if anything maybe some of the components may have motors and blowers with parts made outside the us, but they are the same blowers and motors used in the "high priced" brands. the welding is all done by hand by craftsmen who care what they put their name on( ive seen arguements over who lays a better bead on a particular weld, i love it, if they didnt care that wouldnt happen)
as for emmissions , we currently have the cleanest burning large firebox (over 3.0 cubic ft. ) on the market today regardless of price , the unit made the hearth and home hall of fame (given only to units which come in under 2.0 GPH in testing for certification) and another which made honorable mention (came in at just over 2.0) our pellet units have EPA certification and can be used anywhere in the US regardless of "green" regulations. our "return rate" currently has averaged less than 1 tenth of 1% which is as good as anyone in the industry. ( this means a unit which is sold stays sold)even in the market which includes the "no questions asked return policy" you guys have shopped at lowes/ depot , they will take anything back at the drop of a hat.
all that and i have to defend my product line simply because we sell in the mass merchant DIY market. well, ive done that , anyone got any arguements , i'll field them. but as they say , "bring em big , or leave em at home" cause bang for the buck , we cannot be touched.
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