Reccommendations for places to buy a quality Fireplace.

King_Slayer

Looking to buy a quality electric fireplace suite. Any Reccommendation will be appreciated. :T

rustyboy21

Go to your local independent fireplace showroom. They will be able to offer you lots of diferent things. You can mix and match the fireplace and fire, so you get something unique to you, not just a bog standard one you would get via the internet or one of the sheds.

Furts

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Go to your local independent fireplace showroom. They will be able to offer you lots of diferent things. You can mix and match the fireplace and fire, so you get something unique to you, not just a bog standard one you would get via the internet or one of the sheds.

But keep your wits about you. My local independent has a huge showroom with countless fires. They are full of sales pitch but they do not know there ar-e from their elbow. Nobody is qualified in, or interested in, site visits. This is left to the sub contracted fitting teams who turn up if they have a slot in their workload.

The showroom could not care less about the missed appointments and frustrated potential customers - they are making loads of money from pliable punters. Little wonder people turn to the internet.

Le_Kirk

I suppose it depends where you are based!

phoenix_w

Remember that electric fires are all essentially a £5 fan heater with a fancy light show attached. Work out how fancy you want the light show (i.e. decide if you plan to have it switched on or not) and then budget.

If you want something that looks good and has a semi-decent lightshow, the all-in-one sets from Dimplex are pretty smart - all you need to do is take it out of the box and plug it in.

rustyboy21

Furts wrote: »

But keep your wits about you. My local independent has a huge showroom with countless fires. They are full of sales pitch but they do not know there ar-e from their elbow. Nobody is qualified in, or interested in, site visits. This is left to the sub contracted fitting teams who turn up if they have a slot in their workload.

The showroom could not care less about the missed appointments and frustrated potential customers - they are making loads of money from pliable punters. Little wonder people turn to the internet.

Not all of us are cowboys you know !


OP take on board some of Furts comments, but you should get a feeling about who you are dealing with. 99.9% of fireplace showrooms are husband and wife teams, all independent companies, there aren't really any national groups doing this type of product.


If you go down the internet route, you will end up with very little back up, have a product that many 100's of other people also have, and made in massive quantities abroad somewhere.


Go to an Independent Fireplace showroom and you will choose your fire, then your interior and finally your surround, all of which come in many varieties and colours. If you go for wood, you can even take a sample of the colour of wood you already have and they can either get a colour match or get one near as dammit the same.


Furts, it sounds like you were unlucky. I take pride in what I offer, no hard sell and I am honest with the consumer. It sounds like you went to a store, which is owned by an old double glazing company owner. A number of them went into this sector as they thought they could make a fast buck, which is, of course, a load of cobblers. Selling fireplaces is an art form and a lot of technical knowledge is needed too. I have been selling fireplaces for over 20 years and am still learning things.

Furts

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Not all of us are cowboys you know !


OP take on board some of Furts comments, but you should get a feeling about who you are dealing with. 99.9% of fireplace showrooms are husband and wife teams, all independent companies, there aren't really any national groups doing this type of product.


If you go down the internet route, you will end up with very little back up, have a product that many 100's of other people also have, and made in massive quantities abroad somewhere.


Go to an Independent Fireplace showroom and you will choose your fire, then your interior and finally your surround, all of which come in many varieties and colours. If you go for wood, you can even take a sample of the colour of wood you already have and they can either get a colour match or get one near as dammit the same.


Furts, it sounds like you were unlucky. I take pride in what I offer, no hard sell and I am honest with the consumer. It sounds like you went to a store, which is owned by an old double glazing company owner. A number of them went into this sector as they thought they could make a fast buck, which is, of course, a load of cobblers. Selling fireplaces is an art form and a lot of technical knowledge is needed too. I have been selling fireplaces for over 20 years and am still learning things.

I support your point of view and well done for posting it. My concern is that my local showroom is not the only one that operates in this manner, so my experience may be more common place than you are letting on.

I went to my showroom with details of my fireplace, hearth, opening, flue, pot, etc. and asked their recommendations for any suitable fire. The response was that this approach was far too technical and way outside their sales orientated approach. Nobody on the company had any technical ability and nobody had ever had any interest in acquiring any. The latter point being made because the company has existed for years and has never changed its business model.

The technical ability is left to sub contractors but the showroom cannot comment on their abilities for they have no technical knowledge in order to do so. Hence the sub contractors can do as they please and the showroom does not supervise, oversee or check anything. This role is left to the customer who frequently knows even less than the showroom staff.

Basically a Cowboy's Charter and an accident waiting to happen. The showroom and the sub contractors get rich whilst the pliable punters are taken advantage of.

rustyboy21

Hi Furts

I would love to know who it was. We all seem to know who each other is, but the situation you had is not a general thing you would have in all showrooms, you have been unlucky I feel.

If you dont want to put the name on here, PM with it and the town they are in. I know a lot of people in the industry and I can pass on a few words to manufacturers etc, to make sure this shouldn't happen again. Manufacturers hate being involved in aggro, they will even find another dealer in the area if the situation is so bad, as you claim. The staff should know what they are selling and if not, someone should be available to answer your questions. With Gas fires especially, you have to be ultra careful in what you offer.