Warning to those planning on installing a gas heating stove, and dealing with this business in particular. What began as an annoying experience of endless repairs and unreturned phone calls, ended with finding something more disturbing.

We purchased an Ascot gas stove from Hearth Fireplace Depot on July 17 2008, for $3, 161.

There were issues with the installation from day 1, with the stove working intermittently, not working at all, and not working with the thermostat.

Since the purchase, Hearth Fireplace Depot techs came to our house on 4 separate occasions to fix the issue - the second last repair being in Dec 2008. After this last visit, the thermostat worked for 3 days and stopped. The stove worked again for one month and stopped on Jan 21, 2009.

Hearth Fireplace Depot came for a fifth repair visit on Jan 23rd 2009.

****I mentioned to the technician that I get headaches and dizziness after a couple of hours in the room with the stove. In my ignorance, I thought that it was because of the new carpet in the basement. ***The technician found that the exhaust pipe that runs along the wall was not properly fitted and there was a 2 inch gap in the rings***. We had poisonous exhaust leaking into our home this whole time. He also found that the wires and pilot light box melted underneath the gas stove, because a heat shield was not applied. We've since installed a carbon monoxide detector.****

Not the end of issues. During the last cold snap, we had ice and water in our built-in living room cabinet which stores the TV, DVD, and stereo equipment. This cabinet is directly above the basement stove vent installed by Hearth Fireplace Depot. There was not sufficient insulation applied around the vent. The hot vent caused condensation and we had to lay out towels to soak up water.

Lastly, we were not impressed by how Hearth Fireplace Depot handled our payment. The agreed terms were to take 50% of the payment up front and 50% after the installation was complete. The initial payment of $1600 was taken out on July 17th, and the remainder $1561.03 withdrawn on July 25th - weeks before anyone showed up to install the product.

This is topped off with the complete lack of interest and initiative Hearth Fireplace Depot shows us thoughout this ordeal. It appears that their interest ended once the payment cleared. It's difficult to initiate any help, techs that were supposed to come to our house did not show up on several occassions, and one of my November phone calls ended with salesman yelling "Don't you know this is the busiest time of the year for us?"

Do not deal with this business. The issue is being investigated by the BBB.