Invicta Sedan 10 Wood Burner Review – Read Our Invicta Stoves Review
This an Invicta Sedan 10 Wood Burning Stove Review. We purchased this from Meteor Products Ltd of Taunton – in December 2015.
We purchased this expecting an easy process. Sadly we didn’t get that.
Within a few weeks of installation, the handle snapped off. Completely sheered – just when closing the door.
Most of the winter, for which of course we purchased the wood burner, we were unable to use the wood burner.
Things started well. The Invicta Woodburner was delivered, although Meteor Products Ltd failed to provide any manual or fixing instructions. Despite this, our fitter was able to put it all together and deliver us a wood burning stove that was working before Christmas.
He advised us to operate the wood burner slowly for the first few uses, not putting too much wood into it at a time, to enable it to settle. We followed his instructions.
After approximately two weeks, after loading some wood, the front door handle snapped off. The wood burner stove was now out of action.
I contacted the supplier, Meteor Products Ltd, and they said they would send a replacement handle, when their next delivery was being sent to them some three weeks later.
I explained that this wasn’t the customer service that I was expecting, in that I had purchased the Sedan 10 Woodburner Stove to use over the winter, and if they waited for their next delivery at the beginning of February, I would have three of the coldest weeks without my wood burner.
After a few emails they agreed to send it faster than this.
I was quite excited to have fitted the handle, until as I shut the wood burner ready to light a fire the handle snapped again.
To say I was frustrated would be a huge understatement.
Once again we contacted Meteor Products and again, incredibly reluctantly, they agreed to send a replacement handle.
The handle arrived but again on fitting as soon as I went to shut it, it snapped again!
I was not applying any great force, simply doing what the handle was designed to do and using it to close the wood burner.
I took a closer look at the wood burner and noticed that the main front door had warped. I took some pictures of the warped door and sent them to Meteor Products Ltd.
They contacted their wholesaler Prevex Ltd, who in turn contacted Invicta Wood Burners.
Eventually they agreed to send a replacement door.
The door arrived without any glass or handle fittings, but a new handle arrived separately. I had to transfer the glass and the fittings.
However, I was not prepared to take the risk with the handle again, so asked the fitter to come back to operate it. He put it back together, adjusted the door as necessary, then very gingerly closed the door only to hear the handle snap instantly.
His opinion, and everyone else I have spoken to with any engineering expertise is that the obvious flaw in this Invicta Wood Burning Stove is that the handle is made of enamel, which is clearly not up to the task. It should be made of steel which would not snap when closing.
He called Meteor Products Ltd and summarised his findings to them. They explained that they had an engineer on site and they would ask him to make up a stainless steel handle to replace the defunct enamel handles.
By this point I was happy to do anything to get the wood burner working.
A week later when we had heard nothing further, the fitter contacted Meteor Products Ltd. He asked them if the new handle was on its way, but was told that the engineer had been in a ‘bad mood’ when he had seen him, so he didn’t feel like he could ask him to make the new handle at the time.
He told the fitter that he had ordered another handle from Invicta!
He asked why had they done this when they clearly were not fit for purpose in terms of closing the door, but Meteor had no answer.
This is the funniest part, if you can call any of this funny which I struggle to as I have been so disappointed with the service received, but new handle number 4 arrived in the post- ALREADY BROKEN!
Yes, it is so weak that it actually broke in the post, despite all of the bubble wrap.
If anything proves the point that the Invicta Sedan 10 Wood Burner handles is not fit for purpose, it is that!
So, four months from first fitting I have a wood burner that is inoperable.
We have heard nothing further from Meteor Products Ltd.
I have compiled this Invicta Sedan 10 Wood Burner Stoves review for two reasons:
- So that if you are considering buying one, you go into it firmly armed with the facts. I love the look of the wood burner, and in the two weeks that we were honoured to have it working, it was great. Good heat, nice looking, large window. However, the handle is not up to its task, which is quite important considering that this is a wood burning stove; and
- In the hope that Invicta Wood Burner Stoves supply me with a handle that is fit for purpose and change their specification moving forwards so that other people do not have the unbelievably poor experience that I have had when purchasing one of their wood burners.
Update 30th March 2016.
I sent a link to the above post to Meteor Products Limited of Taunton who sold the wood burner to us, Prevex (the importer/distributer) and to Invicta (the manufacturer) on 19th March 2016 when I first published it.
Needless to say, based on their total lack of interest in providing a wood burner that is ‘fit for purpose’, I have not received a response.
Sadly even the local fitter seems to have lost interest and has washed his hands of it – three calls not returned now.
I have this morning taken the latest broken handle to a local forge and they could not understand why the handle would be made of enamel which is clearly not up to the job.
They are going to make a handle in steel at a cost of around £125.
Update January 2017
The replacement handle that I had made at my own expense works a treat. Sadly, however, the second door has warped so that looks like the next thing that needs replacing.
When it works the big glass window is great, but the amount of problems and total lack of service or interest means I would never recommend this or any wood burner from Invicta to anyone.
Had a similar issue?
I would love to hear from you if you have had a similar issue or had other issues with Invicta Woodburners or Meteor Products Ltd.
Please leave a comment below.