A wire broke off the ignitor element in our Harman unit. I have ordered a replacement and it looks simple enough to fix myself. But before sourcing the part I had called about 5 different fireplace companies in the area, and it seems everyone has dropped all support for pellet stoves in recent years! Not only does no one sell them any more (other than Canadian Tire), but they all outright refused to even consider sending a repairperson to help.
It’s a bit infuriating. I am calling them, literally saying “please come take my money at your standard hourly rate”. One would think “struggling businesses” would be more willing to take on what should be profitable work.
Is it such a liability issue for them that they’re actually afraid to take on the work?
What if something bigger fails someday on my pellet stove? Why is no one on the island now willing to work on one?
If you know of someone who does still service wood pellet stoves on the island (Courtenay/Comox), please reply here or DM me. Thanks.
EDIT: formatting
Let me preface this by saying: I know the pain. Not being able to find repair services is a Pita. If you don’t care about why I do, just skip to after the quote. I own a small household wind turbine that is legally required to be serviced, by a licensed company, annually. Finding someone who was licensed as well as not a huge jackass, incompetent, or both, was difficult. Buying the electricity instead of having the turbine would be detrimental to our economy.
they are high-maintenance so we don’t deal with them any more’
It does sound counter intuitive, unless you put that excuse in context of the pellet prices excuse.
If pellet prices made using a pellet burning stove non viable, then demand for service is dwindling. With little demand for service keeping a stock of parts is too expensive, that means at least two trips to the customer, one for diagnostics and one for repairs.
Some equipment need special tools, and with little demand those tools can be hard to justify the cost of.
Then there’s training, same as with the tools. Why keep yourself updated if you’re only to need it twice a year?
Couldn’t a business just mark up their prices on parts and labor? Well they could… but then there’s the final nail in that coffin: customers. If repair X used to be Y dollars, and now it’s 3*Y, because of the above reasons, then you need to explain and defend the price, while ultimately also be getting a reputation of being expensive and difficult to work with.
So it’s just better for the business to just refuse the job.
If the company that made the stove is still in business, maybe they can send you towards an authorized dealer that still sells and services the stoves? Alternatively you can do what I usually do: find a service manual, hope for the best, and take it from there. Although a stove is one of the things I’d rather not mess with by myself.
Yeah I figure that’s sadly why all these dealers I spoke to don’t want to touch it. They may not have any staff currently trained up on them now, plus if they don’t stock parts any more… it’s no longer worth their time. I’m really surprised though, as I thought pellet stoves were still quite popular on the island (though they’re all older installs now, I guess…)
A fireplace is not a throwaway item though; I had hoped the company that installed it for the home’s previous owners (only 12 years ago) would still at least look at it. They were willing to 4 years ago and didn’t mention anything about dropping pellet stoves entirely at the time.
Well, anyhow I hope I can keep the unit going – replacement part was approx. $18, so worth a try before considering replacing with a propane fireplace that I was quoted at 6-7K (eeks!) It’s been great the last 10 years, a really dependable unit.
