Buck’s Stove Palace

Well we just spent a great Christmas enjoying the warmth of our new Hearthstone Tribute Woodstove,
courtesy of Buck and all of the good folks at Buck’s Woodstove Palace. Thank you all !
We had already done a bit of research and had pretty much decided we wanted a sopstone stove and that Buck’s
was who we wanted to do business with. We had visited the shop around Thanksgiving time and met Kirk,
who was very helpful with ideas and felt that we were on the right track. We made an appointment to have Buck
come visit us and confirm the details of our installation and to make sure we got the appropriate stove for
our situation.
True to form, Buck came out on a Friday evening and for the whopping sum of a glass of fresh squeezed
orange juice confirmed our choice of a stove, made notes on the installation, prepared our bill of materials
and finalyzed our estimate. This was, of course, in between Buck’s stories of his days’s as a teacher
and other adventures, which were entertaing to say the least ! Before we knew it, a couple of hours had passed,
and we shook hands on our woodstove deal.
Buck’s instincts were spot on as he described a hearth pad that he felt would work well with both our stove
and our living room, and indeed this is the pad we ended up going with.
The next day, Saturday, we went down and Buck had the two Hearthstone Tribute stoves he had in stock placed
side by side so we could pick out the one we wanted, and then he pulled out the hearth pad he talked about the
night before (from among dozens), and it was perfect. No need to look any further. We cut a check,
and that afternoon the hearth pad and woodstove were delivered — Buck wanted us to have a chance to see things
actually in the house before the install — a nice touch.
Carson, our installer, was great. While in the midst of several other installations, and while trying to
prepare for a road trip home to visit his family for Christmas, he managed to get our permit pulled and our
work scheduled for later that week. Had it not been for the relentless rain he would have finished in a single
day. As it was, he returned to finish during the first break in the weather. The installation came out
beautiful — he is a first rate craftsman.
We are very pleased with our woodstove and our experience with Buck and the rest of the folks at the
Stove Palace. We value the experience that they all brought to our installation and we feel good about
supporting a long-​standing local business and it’s employees and families. Thank you !

Make sure you check your codes. We were told a stove was code and just insert. WRONG. Then we decided to do something else, back for more parts, WRONG parts, wrong color we needed to spray paint. Only had 3′ pipe, needed 4′ so we purchased a different brand, was told it would work, WRONG. We have had to go back 5 – 6 times and it still not installed. Do yourself a favor, purchase a new one, by the time you buy everything you need, and don’t need, it adds up the same. We will NEVER purchase here again

Rarely do you find great product knowledge, over the top customer service and excellent prices at one business. Well, Buck’s is that place. Would never go anywhere else after our experience. Felt good about every part of the interaction.

Great business both in customer service and down to earth ambiance. Walking into Buck’s is taking a step back in time from the historic neighborhood building to the many antique stoves and accoutrements. They were very helpful in outlining venting for a DV stove I picked up on Craigslist and provided an assortment of parts to cover some unknown dimensions. At end of job they took back the extras and provided a refund. As noted in other reviews, a trip to the Palace is a unique experience. So relax and take it in.

This is the kind of place that represents the quickly fading essence of the Portland that I grew up in. Buck is an authentic oddball who really knows his stuff. Long may he rule this corner of SE Portland.

We have live in Estacada and every time the wind blows it seems to knock out power at least for a little bit which made us concerned for our snakes and ourselves. If the power goes out in the middle of a snow storm we would all freeze, even with camping gear we can’t keep 10 or more snakes, salamanders, spiders, guinea pigs, a rabbit, dog and the humans warm. So we wanted a wood stove. About $ 700 for install, but Buck doesn’t install he just sells the stoves and equipment and contracts out. He does talk a lot and answers phones but he is running a business but keeping it personal. In this day of cell phones and atms it’s actually nice that he sits down and personally asks what we want. He didn’t try to sell us anything over what we wanted, except a blower fan and I am still not sold yet. Great price, I budgeted $ 4000 but we didn’t even tell him that until the end but he was spot on.
He knows his stuff so if you go into a shop where the guy selling you the fireplace looks like he is selling you a car turn to Buck. From the second we walked in and were greeted I didn’t feel it was fake or that we were going to get screwed out of a lot of money. If you are too stuffy to like tattoos, colored hair or genuine people you should go find yourself a salesman who will sell you a top of the line piece of crap. If you want a good priced stove and you don’t want to be screwed out of money I strongly suggest you call Buck.

I’m not going to recount what a character Buck is — other reviewers have pointed this out. You’re not dealing with a corporation here — you’re dealing with a quirky individual. An individual whose business practices may seem eccentric, frustrating, time-​consuming, and occasionally rude.
That said, Buck knows stoves. He really knows stoves. What’s more, he cares that you get the right stove — he insists on visiting your home to see where you want to install it to make sure it’s going to work before he will sell you one. I’m very happy with the work he did for us, and the advice he gave us. He’s also single handedly helping to keep Portland weird.

Let me show you my hand straight off. I’ve bought two stoves from Buck’s Stove Palace, and the final result both times was nothing short of a beautiful, and totally functional installation. As a matter of fact, it’s thirty-​seven degrees outside and I’m writing this review sitting in front of my lovely soapstone wood stove I bought from Buck.
But buying a stove from Buck is like getting your teeth pulled — by the Godfather. I dread calling Buck, like I dread calling the dentist; but there is never any doubt that when the subject is stoves, Buck is the guy I’m going to call. He hires help, but won’t delegate authority. His many, many customers must wait to speak to the big man, while his hired help stands around looking sheepish. Once you arrive in Buck’s clutter of and office, he will treat you to anecdotes while others wait. He will send you out to consider a few final details and then put you back at the end of the cue. If he really likes you, he might send you out to his warehouse to take a look at something, and you will find yourself groping your way through rubble resembling 1945 Berlin — one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
Once you have gone though the decision merry-​go-​round and arrive at a solid understanding with Buck, you might need to renegotiate half of it because he won’t remember, or something else came up and it suits him not to remember. When you get angry with him; and you will get angry, he will be truly hurt and you will feel like a schmuck.
I trust Buck. I trust him to treat me like a valued customer, to screw up my order, and ultimately give me more than we agreed on. I’ll be building a house in Yachats in a few years, and I’m already dreading the call I know I’ll make. I like Buck — he’s the real deal.

I don’t know what I expected to find when my husband dragged me out in the rain a couple of weeks ago to go see a used pellet stove he had found. We have been trying to find something to make use of the huge basement fireplace and we thought a pellet stove might do the trick.
Buck’s Stove Palace. A palace it ain’t, but you might just find some trinket or other that was ever so gently lifted out of a palace at one time. This place is filled wall to wall with items from all kinds of homes. I had fun just imagining where the crown molding may have come from, or the chandelier hanging so out of place in the middle of this cram-​packed hodgepodge of a store, or how about the king size throne of a chair that was seated just slightly off center from the Christmas tree that had been erected on top of a hearth?
And Buck? Oh, he’s real. He’s so very real. He has been in this business for longer than I’ve been alive and he doesn’t mind telling you about it. I heard more stories about this customer of that century and that customer of this decade, but what I found so amusing was that Buck would frequently stop in the middle of this stories to tell you how busy he is and he won’t be able to help you quite yet until he’s done with this other customer. He did seem to have a helper that came in and out of the room several times. The helper tried to do what I think he was hired to do– «help» but every time he did, Buck would tell him not to and that only Buck could do that work. Wow.
The good news is that Buck is EXTREMELY knowledgeable. He knows every kind of stove and why it will work better than that and he’ll even come check out your home and tell you if it will work. His housecalls are a hefty $ 1. There’s something kind of cool about having that kind of customer service that has bridged the decades to make you feel like you’re in 1948 instead of 2008.
3 stars for knowledgeable assistance, availability of used and new stoves (of every kind), décor and housecalls