CREATIVE FIREPLACES & STONE

The owner, Devin, was recommended to me by a friend who works in construction and also had a fireplace installed by Creative Fireplaces (CF). Devin came to my house and made recommendations of what he thought would be best based on what we were looking for. We felt assured that we would be well taken care of by him and made our down payment so the fireplace could be ordered. We had to wait a considerable amount of time for the fireplace, as first the office help was sick and then there were issues with whoever was supposed to pick up the fireplace (he was out of town), etc. Once the fireplace was available, the installation went well. The technicians were on time and courteous. However, we immediately had difficulties with our fireplace in that it would not always turn on with the remote control and the fireplace would also spontaneously turn itself off and then there would be a beeping noise until it cooled down. The automatic turn off would happen with the fireplace being on for less than an hour, so should not have been an issue of overheating. First CF thought the remote was faulty and we got a new one after multiple phone calls and days of waiting. This did not solve the problem. We continued to have problems with it not turning on and one time actually had an explosion in the fireplace while a 6 month old was laying on the floor in front of it. Granted no one was hurt, but it was VERY scary. It turned out that it was because when the fireplace didn't light the gas was still running, so when you would cycle through the remote, trying every 5 minutes to turn the unit on, the gas that had built up caused a small explosion. Devin actually came back out to inspect the fireplace at that point, because as you can imagine we were all a little shaken after that episode. He confirmed that everything had been hooked up correctly and seemed to be working properly. He did think the issues were again the remote and our misuse of cycling through it too quickly trying to get the fireplace to turn on. We also continued having problems with the fireplace prematurely shutting off. The latter was fixed by covering the remote box that was located on the inside of the unit with a plastic cover to prevent it from overheating. That actually did help some in that the fireplace would run longer before shutting itself off. Eventually, the remote box was placed on the outside of the fireplace and the problem was solved. Of course, the box was now outside in plain sight and not very pretty, BUT we dealt with it now that finally the problem of the fireplace shutting itself off was solved. We did continue having issues on and off with the fireplace not turning on and creative fireplaces eventually changed our remote entirely. This did not solve the problem. I got the feeling at some point that Devin felt that we were customers complaining for no reason. The problem of the fireplace not turning on did not happen every time, but multiple times per week. He had promised our 100% satisfaction and our conversion cost us $4500! Eventually, I gave up calling this company and placed this brand new unit on a service plan starting winter 2009. The remote control was removed entirely by an outside company and we now manually have to turn this unit on (after paying more for a remote gas fireplace!). This manual turn on/off worked better than the remote, but the problem of this unit not turning every time your flipped the switch has never fully resolved. In winter 2010, we had another company come look at it and they felt there was something wrong with the unit itself (since I am not a fireplace expert, I'm not sure what exactly was wrong), and they asked me to call the original person and check out the warranty on this unit. I called Devin to see about the warranty and he said he would get back to me because he was driving in his car at that time. He did not call back and I called again, left a message and still never heard back from him. I am so very disappointed with this company who was recommended to me by a personal and trusted friend (who has had no problems with his fireplace). Maybe it is not the fault of the company, but the unit itself. However, shouldn't the company who recommended this unit and promised our satisfaction with it and their services live up to their word? We would not ever recommend this company to others and gave up trying to have them make things right without litigation or the threat of it. We did, however, want to share our story with others.

As an earlier post says, the representative from Creative Fireplace is quick to tell you he has a masters degree in mechanical engineering, he has appeared on Extreme Home Makeovers, he holds several patents, etc. He gave a very good presentation and seemed very knowledgeable about the products. Being knowledgeable is one of the representative's strengths, however, organization and communication are weaknesses. The representative was not good about returning phone calls or e-mails, or keeping us informed with the timeline to do our job. We ordered our insert on 2/9/11 and the representative said he would go to Iowa to pick it up 2/11/11. We tried to get a firm install date from the representative and it took him a couple weeks to set that up. Part 1 of our installation was completed on March 8, 4 weeks after he said he picked up our unit. The building inspection was not completed until 3/16 (it did pass) and I haven't spoken to the representative since. He is evidently ill, and his company has people lined up to finish the outstanding jobs. We didn't know he was ill, all we knew that once the inspection was finished he assured us he would be out a day or two later to finish the job. We called him and/or e-mailed him every few days and got no response. A representative from his company called us 3/22 and told us they were going to get our job finished since we were left hanging. She said our remaining equipment (the "surround shroud") had been ordered and was on the way from Iowa. They expected to receive it the next week and we would have our installation no later than Friday, 4/1/11. I tried to call them a few days prior to 4/1 to get things firmed up, and again - no returned phone calls. Finally on 4/1 a different person called from Creative Fireplaces and told us that the first woman was incorrect in giving us an install date of 4/1 because our equipment was still in Iowa! At this time, we were firm about getting a plan to finish, or we would end the business relationship and hire another contractor to finish the job, and they assured us we would be done on 4/6/11. Once we realized that communications and keeping time commitments were an issue for this company, we documented everything - who said what and when. Every unreturned phone call was followed up with an e-mail. Today, 4/6/11, it is done. Finally. Just in time for the first warm, sunny day we've had all year. The installer had some issues getting everything lined up but in the end it got done and everything is working just fine. This start to end process took 3 very long months. And yes, even on this warm day I'm burning my fireplace! Update on 5/20/11 - I have been waiting to submit this report because I am still waiting for warranty information to come from Creative Fireplace. I sent the paperwork to them with a self-addressed, stamped envelope a day or two after our final installation, and asked for a copy to be sent to me. I haven't received it. I followed up a couple weeks later with a phone call, again nobody returned the phone call. I've given up. Hopefully we won't have issues with the fireplace.

We had a bad experience with them. We called the guy at Creative. He sounded very knowledgeable and very good over the phone. I called up another company and the prices seemed about the same. So I called Creative back and he gave me the woman who was doing the scheduling. She told me that they were very busy, but they would try to fit me in. A month went by and I never heard from them. I called them back and they apologized and the guy made an appointment for the next day. They never called or came out. I never heard from them. I called the next day and asked him what was going on and he gave me a sob story and said that he would come out to look at the fireplace that day. He came out, looked at it, and said that he would be back later in the evening to fix it. He called later and said he had something wrong with his back and he had to go to the doctor. He didn't come out that night but he said he would come at 10 o'clock the next morning. The next morning came and we never heard from him all that day. He never showed up. I called him and told him I wasn't happy with the service we were getting. He just said that he couldn't call all his customers and that it was up to me to call him if he didn't show up. I couldn't believe it. I don't know what his problem exactly was. I didn't get very good service and that's when I called out the other place. I realized that with this kind of a job he might have too much to do and he might get backtracked. I understand that, but I think it would be up to him to call and apologize for the delay and try fixing another appointment.

Devin worked with us from the beginning to design and install the fireplaces. He and his two workers did outstanding work. Both fireplaces are stunning. In addition, Devin seperately redid the tile in our basement shower and did an outstanding job with that.

DEVIN WILL TELL YOU HE HAS A MASTERS IN ENGINEERING, WORKED FOR HEAT N GLOW AND HAS APPEARED ON EXTREME MAKEOVER, HOME EDITION, AND ALL OF THIS MIGHT BE TRUE, BUT HE IS NO CRAFTSMAN. HE SCREWED UP THE MEASUREMENTS ON THE BASE, TOOK THREE TRIES TO WIRE THE UNIT CORRECTLY, FAILED TO ORDER CORRECT PARTS, TOOK 3 MONTHS AND 9 VISITS TO FINISH THE JOB, TRIED TO OVER BILL ME FOR MATERIALS, THE LIST GOES ON. THIS GUY AND HIS CREW WERE CLUELESS. IT WAS LIKE AN EPISODE OF F TROOP MEETS THE KEYSTONE COPS, WITH A GUEST APPEARANCE BY GILLIGAN. I WAS SO CONCERNED WITH THE QUALITY OF HIS WORK THAT I HAD AN INDEPENDENT INSPECTOR COME IN AND REVIEW HIS WORK. HE USED MY $4,000 DEPOSIT TO FLOAT HIS BUSINESS. THE WORD INCOMPETENT DOES NOT BEGIN TO CONVEY THEIR PERFORMANCE. AND THROUGHOUT ALL OF THIS NOTHING WAS EVER HIS FAULT. HE CAN TALK THE TALK, BUT HE CAN'T WALK THE WALK. RUN FROM THIS GUY AS FAST AND AS FAR AS YOU CAN.