Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet Helping keep Aroostook County warm for the past 45 years are, from left, Wil Labbe, Boyce Holman and Pat Labbe. |
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — What started as an endeavor to keep his family safe and warm turned into a successful business for Wil Labbe that’s celebrating its 45th anniversary.
But County Stove Shop may not have opened its doors were it not for the two years Labbe spent fresh out of high school attending college and studying business administration. His studies were cut short when Labbe was drafted, and upon returning to The County he attended the University of Maine at Fort Kent and the University of Maine at Orono to become a teacher — but all he’d learned studying business persisted in his mind, despite the fact that he was a passionate educator teaching history first and then mathematics in Van Buren and at many of the region’s college campuses.
“It kept bothering me that I’d gone to college for two years studying business and I hadn’t done anything about it,” Labbe recalled.
Though he enjoyed his teaching career that spanned from 1960-84, Labbe was looking to start a business. He wanted something unique, something that would fill a uniquely Aroostook niche. For a while, he toyed with the idea of possibly opening a cross-country skiing shop but one cold County winter brought him a purposeful venture.
Back in the late ‘60s, Labbe and his wife were raising four young children.
Aroostook Republican Photo/Natalie Bazinet Often seen “laying down on the job” at The County Stove Shop is Bingo, the friendly resident feline. |
“I always worried about what would happen if we lost electricity — what was going to happen if it was -20 degrees and the oil furnace konked out. What would I do with the kids? Where would we go?” Labbe questioned. “The wood stove was a security for me – it didn’t matter if we had electricity or not.”
But when the Labbe’s purchased their first wood stove, it didn’t do much to increase the family safety. They’d purchased a stove at a large department store and it turned out to be not so safe.
Labbe recalled how one day, when they put wood in the stove, the doors opened automatically — fire came out the sides and the log rolled out.
“I knew there was something better out there,” he said.
Labbe indeed found that there were much better options out there for heating stoves.
“I located the Jotul and the Fisher, which was just coming out at the time, so we bought a Jotul and heated our home with that,” Labbe said.
Having found the right fit to keep his family safe and warm, Labbe opened County Stove Shop to help others find safe, quality heating stoves that they can feel good about — and the region has been feeling pretty good about County Stove Shop for 45 years.
“The County Stove Shop makes it a point to test and monitor all units they sell,” Labbe said. “we are presently testing central heating systems such as Ogafen, Biowinn, Minerva, Taeger, Eco-choice and other units from some of our competitors,” he said, explaining that they test the equipment for efficiency, serviceability and electricity usage.
Not only is the County Stove Shop staff well versed in home heating, their prices are competitive in all areas of stoves.
“Our ‘cheap’ stoves are less expensive than at the box stores and we also carry what is considered to be the best of the heating line — that’s the Quadra Fire brand,” Labbe said, explaining that Quadra Fire has won more awards and recognition for its pellets, gas or wood stoves than any other brand.
Ever since that fateful winter when Labbe was determined to bring safe and reliable heat to the region, the County Stove Shop has been bringing the region top-of-the-line and cutting edge products; when Labbe first opened the business, for example, the County Stove Shop introduced the first air tight wood burning stoves to the region.
“These first air tight stoves introduced in the area consisted of the Fisher Stove and the Jotul wood burning stoves — and the latter Rightway and the Thermo Control,” Labbe explained. “These latter introductions were used as central heaters.”
Always on the lookout for innovative ways to safely keep the county toasty during record-breaking low temperatures, Labbe says that the County Stove Shop introduced the first pellet stove (and pellet fuel) to the region in the ‘90s.
Though technology has changed over the years, County Stove Shop’s warm family-owned business hasn’t. (Labbe even jokes that the family adopted employees who aren’t biologically related.)
While the County Stove Shop has been conveniently nestled between the cities of Caribou and Presque Isle for 28 years, many will recall that the family owned and operated business originally started as the Wood Stove Shop in a small Van Buren garage.
Since that first garage storefront, County Stove Shop has been servicing customers from Houlton to the Allagash with purchases of heating appliances as well as providing a long list of services — chimney lining, chimney cleaning, installation and servicing the products sold at the shop, to name a few.
The County Stove Shop also makes sure that their employees are well educated, as their installer holds a State of Maine Solid Fuel license, a gas license, oil license and is the only person north of Augusta to hold a Professional Hearth certificate — which is recognized in all 50 states.