Warming Trends

Warming Trends was referred to us by a trusted contractor. Unfortunately, they did not live up to the recommendation. It took over 6 weeks to get an appointment, then Mark showed up a day earlier than scheduled and claimed that WE made the scheduling mistake. We then ordered the logs we wanted. Mark called the next day to schedule an installation date 6 weeks out. A week before the scheduled installation, I called to confirm the date and time and ensure that we were still on schedule. Mark called back and said we never returned one of the staff’s calls regarding the price of the logs, so the logs were never ordered. (A review of all of our phones’ call logs showed no calls or messages from Warming Trends). We asked if the logs could be ordered on a rush basis so that we could still have the same installation date. Mark refused to absorb the increased delivery fee. We decided to go elsewhere.

Read other reviews – are we talking about the same place? Years ago we bought a Reliant Encore wood stove from Warming Trends and it was amazing – SUCH a great product. Absolutely loved it for years. When we recently moved we decided to buy a gas fireplace insert. I walked into the store a week ago, was helped immediately, had my questions answered, decided on a unit, bought it, scheduled installation, and was out in a half hour. Crew arrived this morning on time, did a great, professional installation job, and left our living room clean and with everything back in place. Insert looks and works great; couldn’t be happier. A very positive experience!

Please heed the negative reviews. We have had nothing but problems with the fireplace we purchased from them, it has been several years and it still does not function properly, and makes banging noises, the glass fogs up, the black painted fire box has «whitish fume residue» on it– they pass the buck, do not return calls, take months to follow up and visit the site, then never check back after to see if things are working — We purchased an extremely expensive fireplace from them, and had an entire very costly remodel done to accommodate the manufacturers’ specs on the fireplace — We have other gas fireplaces in our home (from another vendor) that are much less expensive and have worked flawlessly for over a decade+. This catastrophe is in our main living area, and it is a daily annoyance and reminder that we would never buy from this store or the manufacturer again.

The reviews on Unilocal are about typical for what I experienced here. I didn’t know anything about their products, gas inserts and fireplaces, and I came in with some questions. I was going to buy from them, but not after speaking with the staff. At first I was ignored for about five minutes which is okay. Then, I spoke with a sale man who was flippant and dismissive. He clearly didn’t want to answer any questions about the products.
I asked him about blowers that would help distribute the warm air around the house. He told me that ALL of their inserts have them. I put my hand up to one that he turned on and it had NO air coming off of it. So I asked and was cut off while asking my question. He was clear that they ALL have blowers. He then told me that the blower doesn’t come on until it reaches a certain temperature. I walked away and looked at some other models. Wouldn’t you think that he’d tell me when the blower came on so that I could feel it? Nope. My uncle pointed it out to me.
I’m interested in one of their products, but not with that attitude. I’ll be looking for another store that carries these gas inserts.
In fairness to Warming Trends, you should read the 40 not recommended reviews, many of which are quite positive.

Find another store.
We bought a wood stove from Warming Trends and paid them to install it. A year later, we had them out to clean it and I asked about problems we had with it venting properly. When lighting it, it doesn’t draw sufficiently to start well, and it often smokes up the room.
The technician advised me that we needed six feet more pipe to raise the chimney higher above the roof line.
I called the office to follow up on this recommendation, and was transferred to Ronn Christy. He wanted to know the size of the pipe, so I offered to email him photos. Upon conclusion of the phonecall, I immediately went up on the roof with a tape measure and emailed several pics of the chimney with the tape measure overlaid to show dimensions. No response.
Two weeks later, I phoned and left VM. I then phoned and left a written note. Several days later, I phoned and Ronn answered. He claimed not to have received any of the messages, but while on the phone, I resent the email to the same address and he gets it then.
Now he claims he can’t provide any chimney pipe to fit and says I will have to get a metal shop to build the pipe for me. But no, he has no suggestions for the names of any metal shops that might be capable of doing this for us. Get this Warming Trends: you installed the damn wood stove in the first place, and this is the support you provide!?!

1 star because no stars isn’t an option. Absolute worst customer service I have ever experienced. I have never written a bad review but these guys deserve it. After months of waiting for my fireplace doors, lack of communication from them, multiple phone calls to this company, and endless excuses; I finally terminated the order. I could go in detail about all the problems I had with this company but it would take to long and aggravate me all over. My advice, don’t use this company!

I purchased a high-​end bbq grill from them over the phone. When it arrived I went to the store and picked it up – no problem. I took it home and assembled it, but called them about 2 questions. Their response was that they have no idea how to assemble them and call the manufacturer. Fortunately Vermont Castings customer service was extremely responsive and helpful. I should have bought the grill from a low-​cost internet site – would have saved me lots of $$ and avoided the drive to Santa Rosa.

Our old fireplace in our 1957 farmhouse was inoperable so we needed a fireplace insert. We did tons of research first then went to Warming Trends. We saw the Morso wood burning insert which looked great and is super efficient. They came to measure the next day — we have a large arched fireplace made from gorgeous rough granite stone so wanted to keep that shape. He traced the arch to make a metal surround. We then placed the order after some price negotiations. It was installed yesterday — the crew worked really hard to get it in and were great to keep giving us choices on minor design aspects. It took about 5 hours with 3 guys to complete and test. It looks amazing and the heat from the insert takes care of most of our 1800 square foot house.

I have read Ronn’s response and maybe there was a little misunderstanding between the 2 of us. I am a licensed plumbing contractor of over 35 years, so was a little taken back when Ronn advised to me read the instructions. It could be debated if 35 years makes any difference, but it was a frustrating day trying to convert the unit. Vermont Castings might be a good product, but there is absolutely no technical support from their website. They refer you to where you bought the unit. I have checked further, as something just didn’t seem right with the instructions and the unit I was trying to convert. I think the stove is an older style and the conversion kit was for the newer style. I would email Ronn at Warming Trends, but they don’t list an address.

Ugh, these people were so frustrating for us! Our experience with one of their sales associates was so disappointing, we ended up buying our stove from Friedman’s for much cheaper and much more honesty.
We checked out Warming Trends first because we knew they had a nice selection of stoves. Since my husband and I didn’t know much about stove sizes, we started reading the cards they have with their stoves that tells you the approximate square footage the stove will heat.
Enter salesman. He hears our story of our tiny old house and takes us over to a stove that is rated for something silly like 2,000 square feet. Our house is 850 square feet with what is essentially one big main room and some tiny rooms off to the side.
«Um, this seems sort of big for our house.»
He tells us that no, it’s not, since our house is old we simply could not get away with anything less. It’s just too drafty. Which is true. Our house is drafty. But it’s not 1,000 square foot extra drafty.
«What about this stove? It’s a Morso (which we really wanted) and it’s rated for 1,200 square feet?»
No, he tells us, this stove is too small. You need the big model (which of course one of the most expensive on the floor) otherwise our house won’t heat properly.
Now, we don’t know much about stoves but we can do simple math and we know this stove is just too friggen big for our house. We tell him that we don’t want a stove that big, we don’t want it to be so hot in our main room that we can’t even stay in there. He tells us not to worry, this is the stove we want. We tell him that we don’t want it and he looks at us with this mix of pity and ‘poor stupid souls’ look in his eyes and keeps.pushing.for.the.big.stove. He would not take no for an answer, telling us that he was just there to help us and we would be making a big mistake getting a smaller stove. So we tell him we’ll think about it.
At Friedman’s and we look at their stoves. They have the Morso we want, and the department buyer was in the store while we were looking. When we told him our situation with square footage, old house etc he said it was absolutely ridiculous to get a 2,000 sq ft stove. He told us we would be run out of our room and have to either open a window or retreat into a bedroom to escape the heat. He said even the stove we wanted might be too much. We purchased it regardless, the 1,200 sqft stove and we got it for several hundred dollars cheaper.
Guess what? The stove sometimes gets so hot, we have to open a window. It heats our whole house to the point that we can put 1 log on and walk around our house in a t-​shirt when it’s 30 degrees outside, despite our old single pane windows.

Staff knows about fire! I was very impressed with how much they shared with us. We need to learn more in order to make the right decision for our house. The showroom is full of units to look at and we will be back to buy.

Where Do I start… Customer service is horrible. Did I mention the customer service is Horrible… That said… We ordered our fireplace and were told it would arrive in 3 weeks on a Tuesday. We agreed to have them install it and paid for this; they said the install would happen on the following Friday morning.(in 3 weeks) We are in the middle of a re-​model and this is part of it. At this point we have done all the construction according to the Specs they provided for the fireplace and per the County Code.
On Thursday I called to make sure they were going to be there for the install (I had Contractor scheduled to be there for the install.) late Thursday salesman called and said he had «Just found out» the fireplace was not going to be here for tomorrows install. Maybe he could have called on Wednesday when it had not arrived.
OK… so he says it will be in on following Friday and they can install Friday afternoon. So I reschedule Contractor for Friday afternoon. (At this point it has now been 1 month since we ordered and paid for this) Well… Friday comes and my Contractor is doing odd jobs while we wait for fireplace to show w/​installers… by 1:30pm I have not heard from store… I call and find out that nobody seems to care and they just realized that the fireplace has not shown up yet. They told me «they guys on the clock waiting and costing them money to wait» Oh and my Contractor waiting does not matter… Hello… a phone call this morning would have been good. They finally show up at 4:40pm. I have sent my Contractor home after being on the clock for 4 hours. I called at 4:30pm to find out why they have not bothered to call me back and they said …“Oh we were just about to call you” REALLY! the truck shows up the installers are workin like crazy to install this only to find out they won’t plug it in (because my Contractor has left and has not finished the plug wiring, cause we did not know when they would show) so now we don’t even know if it is going to work. And they are missing part of the Grill facing that comes with the fireplace.
SO we get the Contractor back again to finish what the installers did not… and you guessed it. The fireplace did not work. So now I have to reschedule to have their Repairman out and they also have to order the grill parts that the salesman Forgot to order. This is going to take 3 to 4 more weeks… The repairman finally gets all the parts to finish the install gets it working (because the install guys overlooked some wires.) Some of the parts did not work​.ie. the remote. Then they have the AUDACITY to want to BILL ME for the parts that they forgot to order that are part of this unit in the first place. Needless to say I sent the nice Repairman back with a short note about the extra money they wanted me to pay. Did I mention that the installers installed the exhaust vent too close to the roof edge and the County made us cut and alter part of the roof edge so the Vent would not be so close… Overall I have to say I will never do business with Warming Trends again.

We purchased a high end gas fireplace for a new house we were building. On the plus side they have a good selection of fireplaces and were reasonably knowledgeable about their features. Pricing was competitive with others. On the minus side, they seem to know virtually nothing about how to install these appliances other than how to install the venting, which was fine. Our contractor received almost no support from them and they provided completely wrong information at least three times, causing issues with both installation and code compliance that have been costly and aesthetically unsatisfactory to remedy. We had to educate ourselves from the installation instructions, emails to the manufacturer and building inspectors. Their ignorance of their own products was shocking. Fine to look at fireplaces there but I would never refer anyone to them for a purchase.

They do not honor warranty service. Stay away. I had a problem with a new gas fireplace which had a housing for ambient lighting which did not work. The fireplace manufacturer warranted the part but they wanted like $ 175 plus labor to replace it. And they were rude about it as well. Their argument was they did not do the installation. The installation was not defective the part was. What a joke and a scam. They have a nice selection of product but there are 3 – 4 other dealers in town. I do not recommend them and I would never go back. Try Blaze or Bucks. Fireplace sales are funny. You have to have someone else do the gas and electric work, either the dealer or the gas/​electric fireplace contractor person do the install, someone else to do sheet rock and someone else to do a surround. There may be a person or two around who will do it all. Once you are done however it is worth it compared to a zero clearance fireplace.

Not impressed with the service. Didn’t install on arranged day and then installed with wrong fireplace… They do have some greats products to select from just beware of getting it installed.

Installation was not done properly; staff was not knowledgeable.
Before the installation I asked about building codes and for instructions on site preparation. They either had no idea or didn’t care. A few parts were also missing from their installation (which I discovered after reading the stove manual) and when I asked about the missing components, they told me to buy them from someone else. After buying a several thousand dollar stove, I expect it to come with all the pieces!
Also they gave me incorrect information about the tax credit that the stove was eligible for. Huge disappointment.