ReplyYou have to ask, Dthom?
Personally, I would take no chances
Regular Guest
I am currently waiting for a new Q/F Mt. Vernon AE to be delivered and wonder if I made the right choice after reading all the issues with these units?
Does anyone have any information on the new units and the gremlins that still exist? I have merely place an order and have not taken delivery, the downpayment that I have laid down is refundable.
It does not appear that the local dealer in my are is telling me the entire truth about these stoves?
Any new info that anyone could give me would be helpful in making a more informed purchase or not!
Thank from a newbe
Regular Guest
You have to ask, Dthom?
Personally, I would take no chances
Regular Guest
SeattlePioneer,
Yes, I do feel that I needed to ask the question. I have noticed a significant reduction in post over the past months and thought that HHT would have the issues corrected in the new production models.
I ordered the Mt. Vernon in June of 08 and was not aware of the issues. I asked the dealer about all the technoligy and any problems that they have been having. The dealer told me that they had some bugs when the stoves were first issued, but have had all the bugs worked out of them now. He assured me that the Mt. Vernon was by far the best multi fuel heating appliance on the market. The dealer that I am buying this stove through has been in buisness for 30 years and deals in only pellet, coal, wood space heating appliances. His reputation in the local buisness community is very good. On the other hand he is in the buisness to sell stoves!
I would still like additional information if any current is available on recent installs of Mt. Vernon AE units.
New Guest
It is the convection blower that is hitting the housing once it starts blowing, once the plastic housing expands it will stop.
When I first started looking at inserts, I was tempted to buy the Harmon, it was a little cheaper at the time, but the dealer said they were not releasing it until the winter and had the bugs worked out. The only other one I found that would start up on its own was the Quad. I jumped in because I got tired of cutting, splitting, and stacking 3 cords of wood a year, plus there was no one to feed it through out the day when no one was home. I have an all electric house with heat-pump. I only found out about the problems after I had ordered the insert, but the dealer assured me that the problems were worked out when I got mine, made on 10/0/07.
Went to the dealer and talked with the manager of the store and he went back and talked with the fireplace person. He ended up calling the rep in our area to set up a time for him and the tech to come out. we'll see if it happens, I'll post at that time.
I have chatted with people on another forum that just love the ones that they have and have not had any problems. I would have never known if I hadn't tried to burn corn, it seems to burn pellets just fine, but at
$300 a ton for pellets and $170 a ton for corn, and corn is much easier to handle for me. I may have gotten one of the last lemons who knows.
Regular Guest
We have sold some more of the units this season and have not had any problems thus far.
Regular Guest
Pellets are in short supply in Northeast this year and are expensive at $300/ton (bought fuel oil yesterday for $2.59/gal). Corn is an option, but must get out of Canada and have not looked into corn as a sorce of fuel. Grains or barley is an altenative cheaper sorce in this neck of the woods. Has anyone tried to burn barley in the Mt. Vernon?
I am glad that a couple of post have positive results on the new Mt. Vernon stove. I cannot belive that HHT would continue to produce this stove if they were continuing to have all the issues with them.
I am going to visit my dealer today and discuss the long list of issues and he is going to really have to insure me and get in writting. If HHT has fixed the issues this would be a great heating appliance and if they have the dealer should not have any issues putting it in writting that the stove has been made safe and will work as advertised. If not I will be looking at other pellet stove option such as Enviro etc.
Regular Guest
Are you a dealer and how many have you installed? I really like the options of the Mt. Vernon and ease of use for my wife, but if the stove is riddled with troubles then she will be fustrated with it when I am not at home and she wants it warmer! I also want to be able to trust the stove when I am away from home that it will work as advertised.Originally Posted by jtp10181
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Maybe you should wait until Fröhling sends more models over here.
I'm personally waiting for the Turbomatic. They also have the P2. Email them about it. This is what I'd call a real pellet boiler. An actual professional HVAC guy can install it and pipe up a coil in your furnace with a storage tank and away you go.
Anything HHT offers is junk by comparison. Put a nice stone insert in that you can plug full of wood that stays warm a long time and leave the heavy lifting of pellet burning to a real company.
Regular Guest
Somewhere close to 10 we have installed overall I think. We have sold 5 or so customers were going to install themselves as well. I would only recommend you go with the Mt Vernon if you have confidence in the dealers service staff. Maybe see if you can talk to their pellet tech and see if he is worth while. You may not need any service calls right away (under warranty) but you probably will eventually (they break down over time just like anything else). Even if something minor is wrong from the get-go a tech that knows nothing about the Mt Vernon AE will be totally lost and useless since the technology on it is much different than any other quadrafire stove.
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JTP- Since this unit has history do you qualify the self-installers at all? Also, is HHT actually providing decent documentation on this unit for sequence, parts, operation and troubleshooting? (Like any HVAC manufacturer provides normally)
Further, do they provide training? If so is this training only for distributors or do they let in HVAC technicians also?
Which company in Madison? The big reseller?
Regular Guest
Well tell every customer the benefit of having a pro install it, just like we would with any other fireplace. If they refuse and want to install it themselves so be it. If they have trouble we will still give them support and any needed service calls. If anything is the cause of an installation error they will be charged whereas someone who has us install it would not obviously. I cannot think of any self-installed AE units where people have called with problems. If any are having trouble they have not called us for support.
There is training that right now is available only to dealers who sell Quadrafire products, it has within pretty good documentation of sequencing and logic for the various sensors and error codes. Quadrafire required that one member from every dealer pass this training before they would sell them any more stoves.
No offence to anyone who works on both (because I know there are some who are experienced and good at both), but personally I would not touch a customers furnace, nor would I expect my furnace repair man to touch my fireplace. We sometimes have to go on calls where the fireplace wont work and they had their HVAC guy look at it while he was there working on the furnace. Usually the person either has walked away from it and not touched it, or royally messed it up worse than it was already.
I work at the only authorized Quad dealer in Madison.
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These new induced draft stoves are more similar to what HVAC guys have been dealing with for years. Not a stretch to educate them.
My issue still remains that even though a HVAC unit is complex the HVAC manufacturer still includes all the proper information on the unit WITH the unit or available. The pellet stove manufacturer does not do this. Personally there should be a law against this or the distributor and techs should be required to have state licensing requirements for service.
You can't have a bunch of service morons running around and also not provide real documentation with the sale. Really shouldn't the manufacturer require ALL techs to get certified?
I think smart customers should not buy the stove unless it is supplied with complete operational documentation. Solves the issue you just described.
Regular Guest
Yes the industry as a whole needs to provide better information about individual fireplaces and general troubleshooting tactics. There is no good "official" fireplace tech training that provides hands on stuff and in depth troubleshooting. A lot of the tools and techniques seems almost secretive. This gets brought up on this forum all the time.
The industry needs better and higher educated technicians with a higher desire to learn new things. I have taken college math and psychics classes which really helps a person to better understand how appliances work, and how to fix them. Without that knowledge people go through the motions but don't have a real understanding of what is going on, so anything more complicated than the standard trained techniques stumps them.
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For the most part I don't like where they are sourcing these techs. I think selling fireplaces was one thing and then along came these electrically advanced stoves and there is a huge void to fill.
None of these manufacturers have been responsible enough to put proper measures in place. But, they reap what they sow a bit. This thread is proof of that.
Hearthman had some sort of affiliation that seemed to be going the right direction. However, it seems that the manufacturers are too stupid to give them stoves for their labs.
Regular Guest
Thank you for your post,
I talked to the tech at the dealer yesterday about my concerns and what I have read about these stoves. His response was strait forward and he did not try and fill me full of bull. I use to work in the plumbing and heating industry and have attended tech schools on Toyotomi Oil Miser heaters etc. I have not worked in the industry for several years and have not kept up to speed on the newest technology, but have friends in the HVAC buisness and we talk.
This particular dealer has installed hundreds of the Mt. Vernon AE stove and admit that they have had some issues with some of the stoves. They are a man made appliance and stuff does happen! This dealership has been able to repair all of the issues to date with the stoves. None of their customers have faced the problems as some post on this thread. The Tech knows his stuff and this is their core buisness (unlike the corner furnature store). The dealer has been in buisness for over 30 years and that says something. The tech, (who is certified Quadra Fire Tech) took me thru and had an answer or showed me on a stove that had just come in that was sold all of the issues. Most of the problems that they have experienced has been the customer not learning how to operate this stove.
I am going to give the Mt. Vernon a try and see what happens. I know that some that have posted on this thread will think I am crazy. The dealer has addressed my concerns. They are going to bring my stove into their show room and run it for two or three weeks and if there are problems they can monitor them on site. This dealer can't keep one of these stove long enough to run one in the store, so why are people in my area of the country buying these if they are he nightmare that they appear to be? After they have a chance to run the stove we will then install it in my home. I think that they have gone to great lengths to make sure I will be satified with this stove in my home and I am willing to give them the benefit of doubt. One other thing is this dealer stocks the parts that commonly fail on this stove so if something does go wrong you will not be waiting a month for replacment parts. If you want something out of the ordinary 2 weeks is the estimated time for delivery, which is a little long in todays standards.
Regular Guest
Can anyone out there shed some light on the amount of times this stove should go through its autoclean cycle? Mine has been doing it about every 3 to four hours. 6 to 8 times in 24 hours is a lot. It also is shutting down to clean even when the temp in the room is 7 to 8 degrees below the set temp. My dad had one and his only does it about 2 times a day. Could something be wrong?
New Guest
I purchased a Quadra-Fire Classic Bay 1200 in Oct. 2008 when I moved. I had nothing but problems with it. Everything has been replaced in it. Over last weekend, it dumped pellets and filled up the pellet pot. The pellets were overflowing into the ash pan at the bottom. Somehow this all caught on fire and the entire thing was on fire and blackened everything in this stove. I have had a rep from the Fireplace Store in Billings, MT come out and check it out, replace this and that. Finally, I asked for a refund and they won't refund my money. This is a true LEMON pellet stove. The rep even told me last week that they had returned another one due to it being a lemon stove. The ower of the store won't refund my money but replace it with another stove. I don't want another stove due to the fire hazard.
Does anyone know if there is a lemon law on these to get your money refunded?
Thank you.
Regular Guest
This thread is about a totally different stove than the one you have. Out of all the quad pellet stove in production right now the CB1200 has been around the longest. It could be considered one of the most reliable stoves in the industry.
FYI the pellets cannot "overflow into the ashpan" unless the firepot floor is left open since that is the only connection between the firebox and the ashpan. Unless one of the side cleanout traps was left open by mistake. Typically a pot overflow is caused by too much ash / clinkers in the pot that are not cleaned out over time.
AOP Committee/Professional Member*
overfeeding Quad pellet stoves
I recently diagnosed this problem with my In-laws Castile insert. Turns out the reset button stuck 'on'. I tapped on it, it popped back out and has been fine since. I've never had to replace a reset button so I assume it was an isolated event. Unfortunately, the way this button is wired in is not conducive to servicing. You cannot simply disconnect it to Ohm it out or jump it out as the case may be.
I agree w/ JTP on the the CB 1200 having very few problems I've heard of. IT sounds like your firepot gate was not fully closed. It is a fine line btw these gates fitting tight enough so burning pellets don't drop into the ash pan versus fitting loosely for easier operation. The operator needs to ensure the gas is fully closed after each dump.
Hearthman
Keep the fire inside the fireplace.
New Guest
We cleaned it daily. Vacuumed it out. Made sure the firepot was closed. No clinkers. We just really got a lemon stove. Even the rep from the store said so. He had one other one that they had to send back to the manufacturer. Thanks for your input. I know for a fact the firepot was closed. I vacuum the entire area out and put a tool in the firepot to make sure the holes are open and the firepot is closed. Thanks anyway.
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