Monroe Fireplace & Stove

I purchased (and had installed) a wood burning stove from Monroe Fireplace. Initial estimate /​scheduling went well. After the initial installation, I was told some pieces needed to be modified to complete the installation of the cover pieces and trim. No problem (I thought). What followed was two and a half months of calls to Monroe Fireplace to keep the ball rolling and to get any sort of update. I would call for an update, and be told someone would call me back. Nobody would call for a week, so I would call again, and talk to a different person who had no idea what my situation was. This repeated for the entire two and half months. About half-​way through this I started asking to speak to the owner, Damon, directly. I thought that would improve things, but it barely did. Damon’s call-​back percentage was about 50%, so it was better than nothing (low bar at that point). Each call seemed to require a recap of the process; me filling them in on the details, and them not knowing what was happening and having to call me back (but generally not doing so as previously described).
If this was a big box store, I could understand that. But this is a small business with only a handful of people at the office. The worst part was Damon (the owner) was not surprised by all of this, and made no effort to apologize about the poor customer service. In fact the only apology I got was from the final installer, who was actually surprised when he learned of the situation (as the owner should have been). I of course was nice to the installer and told him it was not his fault and that I appreciated that he was there and actually doing the work (they should promote that guy to actually deal with the customers).
The wood stove itself works well so far. Unfortunately the poor customer service and lack of care from the owner will have me looking elsewhere for future fireplace needs and service.

I love, love, love Monroe Fireplace. Their staff is very helpful and non-​pushy. They had multiple opportunities to upsell me and and did not attempt it; in fact, they were careful to find out my needs and found ways to help with cost control. For example, they offered me a used (but great) liner for my new stove, which saved me several hundred dollars. They have been great with advice and service, and also connected me to several local folks for other work that I needed to have done.

Hard to imagine a worst customer service experience. We have a broken gas fireplace, so my wife chatted with them at the Evergreen State Fair. They set up an appointment to come and
do a bid to replace it. The time didn’t work for us so I called and remade the day and time, but not without difficulty. After some delay the rep showed up. He spent about 30 minutes looking at unit and asking questions. He didn’t have a business card because he ran out at the fair, but he promised to email me the quote the next day. I never heard ANYTHING. So, 5 days later I called. The office manager asked me who had come out… was he tall and thin, or short and fat? I really couldn’t recall his physical makeup but we figured it out. She said he had been busy but would call the next day. NEVER HEARD A WORD! Another week went by so I called again and this time asked for the manager or owner. She told me my rep was the owner (which, according to other posts here appears to be a lie). I told her the situation and she promised a call in the next 24 hours. It’s been another week and not one contact. Amazing! I would suggest you take your business elsewhere as they have some fundamental operational issues.

These guys are a class act, great prices, knowledgeable sale and service people and the best part is they will have your back months after they sold you the product. Thank you so much for your great customer service.

From start to finish Monroe Fireplace & Stove exceeded all my expectations. The sales rep. was very knowledgable and listened to what I was looking for and found the perfect fit for my house rather than just trying to sell me something. I received a much better stove (and stove price), customer service & really impressive installation that wasn’t easy and went quickly. The installers were professionals, knowledgable, clean, cautious & honest. I would refer my grandmother and certainly do business again.

My wife bought me an Egg for Christmas (one of the super expensive green BBQ things). They’d told her if I didn’t like it, they would swap it for something else or pay a 5% re-​stocking fee if she wanted to return it. In the end, I had to return it as we simply couldn’t fit it in our car (we live 800 miles away). I was secretly hoping they might waive the re-​stocking fee due to our circumstances and was delighted that the did without even asking. Great service and sorry that they lost the sale.

Worst. Customer. Service. EVER.
After waiting for nearly 3 weeks to have someone out to provide an estimate to re-​install our pellet stove (that was purchased from them a few years ago) after a remodel — we were told that «paying customers» come before estimates. Huh? So the $ 4,500 we spent on the high end stove doesn’t qualify us as a paying customer?
First — they forgot us. My husband called to schedule someone out, and was told someone would be out that Friday to do an estimate for the re-​install. When no one called or came out, he called them and was told ‘oops, we forgot to put you on the schedule’.
OK — we’ll try again.
Estimate is scheduled for today (a Monday). Husband calls this morning to find out when they will be out, and is told sometime between 5 & 6pm. My husband told them that timeframe doesn’t work with our schedule, as no one is home at that time. The person at the store says, «well he wants to stop by on his way home» and asks (After my husband says that time frame does’t work for our schedule) if we can do the same time tomorrow. After explaining again that time won’t work — my husband asks if it is possible to get someone out during business hours.
They were able to accomodate that — but then my husband asks if we approve the estimate, can he do the work. «oh no,» she says «they are at least a month out»
ARGH! We have been waiting for 3 weeks already due to their screw up to begin with! Then the lady caps it by saying «Paying customers take priority». My husband replys that the $ 4500 we spent for a stove there doesn’t qualify us as a paying customer? Or the fact that we can’t pay anything until your guy gets out to our house to give us an estimate? He goes on to say that we thought we were paying customers — but no more. We’d take our business elsewhere. This lady doesn’t miss a beat and says «That’s fine with us».
That’s fine with us too… we are taking our business to Anderson’s. Super helpful and super friendly.

Sales staff is good and informative but service team lacks any customer service skills. Very non in formative bunch. Scheduled to have them do final installation, upon calling them to see if it got done, they told me it did so I stopped and paid balance. Arriving home I found all they did was hook up to meter, never even came in. Being we waited 4 months for this we decided to fire up stove ourselves which we did but found all the wires underneath were never hooked up! Said they would schedule for follow up, haven’t heard a thing in a week! We like the stove and price was fair but service dept. is weak link. The owner has no customer service skills. Would not recommend this company.

This review is for a home gas fireplace insert purchase and installation.
It’s really tough not to be able to give these guys five stars, because they’re right on the verge of it and in almost every way they deserve it.
First, the store. It’s a big dedicated facility, looks like it was probably built as a fireplace store. They have tons of different kinds of fireplace and stoves – gas, wood, pellet, in every configuration I could think of. They have some really shmancy chromed-​out kitchen stoves that look like they’re from the 19^th century but clearly are all modern technology, and they have tons of grills and big green eggs for outdoor cooking as well. The fireplace selection fills a whole faux living room on the sales floor.
It’s a little bit mismarked on Google Maps (and Unilocal Maps) – it’s around the corner and past the gas station from where the directions end up. They seem used to answering phone calls about this.
The salespeople were very nice about walking through the different models to suit a given house. They figured out a good option and wrote me a bid that beat the next-​best bids I’d seen by over 10%. I asked if they had anything even more cost-​effective, by chance, and they sold me a floor model with a significant discount. It looks absolutely brand new in my living room.
Installing such a device means you need electricity in your firebox (to run the fan), and here’s where I wish I could say they merit five stars across the board, but I can’t. I called to ask for the specs for the unit to pass along to my electrician. Got one of the store owners on the phone. At one point during this conversation, he started laughing and said «well, this kind of installation isn’t up to code, anyway. It would never pass inspection.» That might be true, and it might well be that all the thousands of gas fireplace inserts out there are fine, and no home inspectors out there worry about this. But laughing about this with your customers is probably not the best way to break this news to them.
The electrician actually assured me that there’s nothing to worry about with the way it’s set up. I know him well enough to know he’s giving me the straight dope, so this is all well and good, and there really isn’t anything to worry about with the way these things are installed.
As preparations continued and it came time to schedule the install, the other owner called to get it on their calendar. As I was explaining to her that I only had one more contractor coming out before I’d be ready for them, she cut me off with «just call us when you know!» Seemed like she was ready to slam down the phone, too.
And now to installation day. Everything looks fine – clean install of the thermostat, shutoff valve, exterior gas pipe, and, most importantly, the unit itself. It’s warm and it looks great.
But this brings us to one more common-​sense gripe about their approach to customer service. After waiting half an hour for the installer, I finally called the shop to make sure I had the right day. Guy answers and says «oh, yeah, I remember you, and I know the unit. I know the installer was running around looking for a few parts. He just left a little while ago. Should be there in half an hour.» So you’ve just made it abundantly clear that you knew he would be an hour late… and you didn’t call?
It would be great to be able to give these guys top marks. Once they incorporate a little common sense into their approach to the phone, or get over their fear of speaking into it, or whatever, they’ll be five stars across the board.

We love our stove that we bought 6 years ago. Just called there because our fan sounded funny, and they had all of our information on file. And they gave me some tips on trying find out what was wrong. We had not cleaned the filter, so now our fan is running great and out house is heated by this small, beautiful gas stove. They have great customer service! Seem like very honest, hardworking company. The service people were on time and very nice.