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RodneyG

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Hey everyone I put a down payment on my Cozeburn 250 on 27 AUG. I was told 3 days earlier that my OWB should be in around the 1st week in OCT. Finally got ahold of the salesman one day last week to check on things. Called 3 times left 2 message 3rd time he answered. He's telling me now that it looks more like sometime around DEC:mad: He says it due to so many orders.

Anyone else having this :censored: problem?.

I understand they may be alittle backed up, but what :mad: pissed me off was the the salesman didn't call to let me know :censored: :mad: Plus the fact that now it might be DEC :censored: :mad:

:givebeer: AHH feeling better already!

RodneyG
 
August too late

I went in May and put my deposit on a CB5036, mine was in stock. I was told that if I wait until July I might see one sometime late Fall. I also was told that by August I would look at a Spring 2009 delivery. Glad I pulled the trigger in May and had delivery in July. Consider yourself lucky IF you see delivery this year at all. I will tell you to get everything connection wise done NOW. When it gets delivered you can just hook up the water lines, electricity, fill, and light.....good luck
 
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The dealer I bought mine from last year doesn't have a single OWB on his lot and is expecting slow delivery on the new ones as there are just too many that have been ordered. He is hustling to get all the installation done in advance while the weather is good - but the furnaces will be slow in coming. You may find that Kentucky is not the first to get their furnaces - the colder northern states are probably closer to the manufacturers.
 
If i were guessing you would be right but it should be on a 1st come 1st serve bases. It wouldn't take me much to go get my deposit back and go else where. I really like the cozeburn's fire box design made alot like Central Boilers but looks isn't always good.


Oneoldbanjo which OWB do you own?

Thanks, RodneyG
 
RodneyG:

I have a Woodmaster 4400. I really like it.....but I have not owned any others and can't offer any comparison. It works fine and has never failed me in any way - this will be my second season with it. The only inprovement I could ask for is a some form of grate and ash removal system. Woodmaster offers one as an option - but I have not heard anyone that likes it after they get it. I can burn 2 - 4 weeks without having to remove any ashes and I only need to rake coals in between removing ashes. When it does come time to remove ashes I rake coals about once every half hour and bring the unburned coals to the top and let them burn up - then do it again about 5 or 6 times until they are all burned up. I can heat half a day without adding any wood - then just shovel everything out and start another fire. It would be nice to be able to just remove the ash and leave the coals and fire behind.

I may build a shovel with a screen bottom and then I can shovel out the coals into a metal bucket and the ash will fall through the screen and remain inside the OWB - then I could shovel out the ash and throw the coals back in and just add wood.
 
I ordered a Shaver 165 on July 8th. Was told I'd get it in 7 or 8 weeks. Haven't got it yet.

If you ordered from the factory, I doubt that they gave you that, they were already around 10 weeks back-ordered then.

I ordered mine a week or so after you ordered yours and was given Nov 1st as a projected completion date. I called the factory this week and they reported that the original schedule is still on track.

Call the factory and check on the completion date. That way you won't be in the dark as to scheduling.

Steve
 
I ordered a Shaver 165 on July 8th. Was told I'd get it in 7 or 8 weeks. Haven't got it yet.

I just asked for my deposit back, you can have mine. It's built but they can't seem to get it to me. Ordered on May 19 th. Serious lack of communications. Been promised 6 delivery dates. Have fun. Just bought a CB and will pick it up in 2 weeks at the dealers. Hope all pans out.:dizzy:
 
I was considering ordering directly from the factory. I called and was told it would be 7 or 8 weeks. I called several times to ask various questions about pex pipe, pumps and other stuff. I was looking at other brands too at this time. I ask the other companys questions too.I ask a couple times about how long it would take. I was given the same answer each time, 7 to 8 weeks.

I decided to order through a dealer because he would save me a couple hundred dollars on shipping. He picks them up himself.

This dealer was given several dates.

The first week of September, then the 15th of Sept. Then the 20th of Sept. Then the 6th of October and now 15th of October.

They do have a serious customer service problem.

I ordered 2 rolls of that Solar Guard insulation to wrap my pex pipes in. I ordered it from Shaver/WeldRite. They recommend it on their site.

I was told it would be shipped out the following morning. One week later I called back. They forgot and promised to ship it out the following morning.

Another week went by. I called again and got the same song and dance.

I started calling every other day to see if it was shipped. There was always an excuse. Was put on hold once so they could get me an answer and was hung up on. I called another day and as soon as I gave my name they hung up.



Anyway, after a month and a half, from the day I first ordered the insulation, I finally got it.


Now, here I am, waiting for the furnace. The dealer has been calling me with the latest news when he gets it. He just became a dealer for them and is totally disgusted. He keeps apologizing over and over. He has talked to Billy and thinks things might get done.


This dealer said he has left many messages and never gets a return call. I was promised that I'd get a phone call the following morning with a tracking number. I was told this several times. Needless to say, I never got a phone call.
 
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I just got my Shaver 165 this week. I ordered it the end of May. I agree that they need some serious help in the customer service department. I think they just got slammed and had no idea how to deal with the orders and instead of getting some good scheduling going they just kept on keeping on. What they need is a good scheduling program and some customer service training. Once they can handle their customers in a professional manner I think they could really be a good company to buy from.
I was also promised a delivery several times and ended up being about 2 months late and had numerous times when they didn't return calls. I ended up getting hold of Ray and just kept asking for him and he helped out the most by far and actually communicated with me. The problem now is that they installed voicemail and seem to be using it instead of answering any phone calls....frustrating for any customer.

With all that said I will say that I am happy with the stove...the construction seems sound and I think that it is a great product for the price. I am getting it hooked up and should be running next week.
 
you can have my cozeburn 250..

I would love to sell it and buy a tarm or something that is better than 25% efficient .
 
Looks like i'm not the only one that feels that i'm getting jerked around. I think i'll call the regional sales manager and have a talk with him like it will do any good.

Bassman other than the 25% efficiency:confused: what else do you like or dislike about your OWB and how long have you owned your cozyburn?

Thanks, RodneyG
 
to all you Shaver buyers regarding the solarguard insulation. I have no idea what Shaver is charging you but you can order it directly from the factory. I got mine in 3 days for $ 100.00 including tax and shipping. Shipping was around 36 bucks I think, the insulation was fairly cheap. Its right outside Cleveland and you can pick it up from the factory. Same dimensions they quote in the literature.
According to the factory experts DO NOT wrap this tightly around your pipes. Best R value achieved with at least a one inch air barrier. I put it in 6 inch pipe wrapping the pex with 1/2 inch foam ( R approx 3 or 4 ) then put the solarguard in between the pex pipes for radiation purposes and doubled wrapped the solarguard. No idea how this will work.
I just cant believe a 1/4 of fiberglass sandwiched between 2 pieces of aluminum foil has an R of 11, thats why I went with the extra foam. When you read the solarguard literature its very confusing but I think the R may be as low as 4 or 5 which is still pretty good for 1/4 inch. I only went 32 feet so it probably wont make much difference for me but if you are planning to run 100 or more feet, you may want to wait until someone actually goes thru a winter and see how they make out.

:greenchainsaw:
 
Customer Service

I was considering ordering directly from the factory. I called and was told it would be 7 or 8 weeks. I called several times to ask various questions about pex pipe, pumps and other stuff. I was looking at other brands too at this time. I ask the other companys questions too.I ask a couple times about how long it would take. I was given the same answer each time, 7 to 8 weeks.

I decided to order through a dealer because he would save me a couple hundred dollars on shipping. He picks them up himself.

This dealer was given several dates.

The first week of September, then the 15th of Sept. Then the 20th of Sept. Then the 6th of October and now 15th of October.

They do have a serious customer service problem.

I ordered 2 rolls of that Solar Guard insulation to wrap my pex pipes in. I ordered it from Shaver/WeldRite. They recommend it on their site.

I was told it would be shipped out the following morning. One week later I called back. They forgot and promised to ship it out the following morning.

Another week went by. I called again and got the same song and dance.

I started calling every other day to see if it was shipped. There was always an excuse. Was put on hold once so they could get me an answer and was hung up on. I called another day and as soon as I gave my name they hung up.



Anyway, after a month and a half, from the day I first ordered the insulation, I finally got it.


Now, here I am, waiting for the furnace. The dealer has been calling me with the latest news when he gets it. He just became a dealer for them and is totally disgusted. He keeps apologizing over and over. He has talked to Billy and thinks things might get done.


This dealer said he has left many messages and never gets a return call. I was promised that I'd get a phone call the following morning with a tracking number. I was told this several times. Needless to say, I never got a phone call.

Hi!

I apologize for the problems and some serious steps have been taken to correct them.

First, let me explain that Shaver Furnace has been a small, family-run, service oriented business for 36 years.

Due to fast rising fuel prices - and people wanting to eliminate those monthly bills - furnace orders went through the roof.

While it is normally dead from Jan on - with a small spike in Spring, and then dead all summer because it's hot out and people are vacationing; so no one is thinking about heating their homes... THIS year it never slowed down except for one week in late winter.

Quite frankly, while we ramped up tremendously, adding new buildings and welders, etc., we were not prepared on the front-end, because this has NEVER happened before!

Sales TRIPLED from last year, which was already double from the year before.

We have tripled production and have added a new building (90% complete) with huge cranes, as long as a football field is wide. We now have a small train to move 20 cars from the building with all the sheet-metal, to the building where tinning takes place.

Unfortunately, we didn't add staff in the office - mainly because we couldn't! There simply wasn't room. We also weren't aware of the manpower necessary to handle all of the calls.

A lot of people complained that it was always busy but we can't control how many people are calling in!

That is why we added voice-mail. At least a message can be left now AND we did clear out another room for an office, this weekend and had a new VERY GOOD girl, start this past week.

She is on the phone non-stop calling people, to let them know what is going on.

So now it should be 33%, if not 100% better now.

~~~~~~~~~~

We are having the supplier ship out Solarguard now, to avoid shipping delays, because we NEVER intended to be a Solarguard supplier! In fact the manual gives the phone number to Solarguard to find out the closed dealer to you, so you can get it from them. We just TRIED to help as a serive becuase we could sell it cheaper.

About furnace shipping delays, we needed a computer system to handle the tremendous number of orders coming in and to track them.

THAT HAS BEEN DONE and is ready now. All the past orders are being entered now (which takes a lot of time). Dealers will be able to go online to see exactly where their furnaces are in the manufacturing process AND e-mails are automatically sent a different intervals in the process.

When everything is being done on paper (as it was for 36 years, with no prior problem), you just can't keep track of how many sales are taking place when it's like this - let alone project an accurate delivery date.

This was fine 2 years ago - but when orders started coming in from 100 dealers, we simply didn't have a good handle as to what was happening. This was unprecedented. The whole industry was turned upside-down. Any manufacturer that has a good quality product was backordered.

In early August, we sent an e-mail to all dealers advising them that the 7-8 time period (PLUS shipping, which everyone forgets about) was wrong.

As a point of reference, they were told that orders taken on July 23 would be ready Dec 3rd.

Unfortunately some dealers didn't read or remember this or/and didn't tell their customers. Now they were hounding us and we were doing OUR BEST to help but it was too overwhelming. In their defense, many of our customers are new to this, being customers first and then becoming dealers because they liked the furnace so much. Many don't have store-fronts and most probably don't have a lot of business experience. They just love our furnace!

So dealers were supposed to know about the delay and relay it but just like your dealer did, they kept calling asking us and when 100 do that, it's overwhelming and we can't get anything done or even get a clear head!! We certainly can't answer or return all of those calls!

Anyway, I hope that all of that is past.

I assure you, you were NEVER hung up on! We have had non-stop phone problems in the small rural town of Arkansas! The phone lines would just go dead and people would be disconnected. Other times you would call in and there would already be a conversation going on when the phone answered - between 2 other people! Some days only one phone line works. They are polite country folk! No one would ever dream of hanging up on anyone - even when they are terribly rude to the girls.

I hope this addresses some of your concerns. Everything is SO MUCH better now but now we just need to catch up!

Best regards,

Ben (Factory sales - writing from my office on NC)
 
Factory delays

I just got my Shaver 165 this week. I ordered it the end of May. I agree that they need some serious help in the customer service department. I think they just got slammed and had no idea how to deal with the orders and instead of getting some good scheduling going they just kept on keeping on. What they need is a good scheduling program and some customer service training. Once they can handle their customers in a professional manner I think they could really be a good company to buy from.
I was also promised a delivery several times and ended up being about 2 months late and had numerous times when they didn't return calls. I ended up getting hold of Ray and just kept asking for him and he helped out the most by far and actually communicated with me. The problem now is that they installed voicemail and seem to be using it instead of answering any phone calls....frustrating for any customer.

With all that said I will say that I am happy with the stove...the construction seems sound and I think that it is a great product for the price. I am getting it hooked up and should be running next week.

Hi mistergreentree,

Thanks for your kind words.

You're absolutely right and we did get (computerized) help with scheduling when we saw what was going on but it took the programmers far longer than promised. In fact we waited months to get the system up. In the meantime, we just did our best.

We installed voice mail because everyone was complaining that it was always busy. We certainly can't control how many people were calling in and we thought people would be LESS frustrated by getting through the FIRST time, leaving a message and then getting on with life. We felt that is better than calling for hours or over several days just to get a line (don't forget 2 months of non-stop phone problems!)

I'm surprised that voice mail even works!

If we're wrong, let us know!

Ray is a tremendous asset to the company and we're thrilled to have him.

Some furnaces were sitting there ready to go this summer (waiting to be delivered or shipped) and one of our helpers, (who loaded the trucks and customer's vehicles), was loading any color that fit the bill, regardless of what NAME was on the order. So a lot of furnaces were given to wrong people - all because of ONE person's error.

When we found out, many furnaces from April and May had to be rebuilt, really messing things up!

I apologize for the delay but we feel, as you did, that you have found the best value for your hard-earned money.

Best regards,

Ben
 
I'm waiting on my woodmaster too. Ordered June 31, was told it would be here by mid august. I'm still waiting. But the dealer said the build date was 2 days ago. My fingers are crossed.
 
I just asked for my deposit back, you can have mine. It's built but they can't seem to get it to me. Ordered on May 19 th. Serious lack of communications. Been promised 6 delivery dates. Have fun. Just bought a CB and will pick it up in 2 weeks at the dealers. Hope all pans out.:dizzy:

Hi!

YES, many furnace are DONE, waiting to be shipped.

We started shipping ALL of the furnaces ourselves because at least 50% of the furnaces were being damaged when shipping by freight!

So we started delivering all of them on our truck. Obviously, that is a tough task when going back and forth 2000 miles a trip!

That take a big toll on vehicles. In just 2-3 weeks there were no less than 4 break-downs including a blown transmission (under warranty) and a dealer repair that has to be redone FOUR times. Each time we were literally on the side of the road STUCK with customers furnaces.

These are not old trucks by any means but when you put 90,000 miles on in 10 months, things break.

The good news is that we can now ship by freight again and you can have your furnace is just a couple days!

We are now crating them in a steel crate (to protect from fork-lifts and there hasn't been on report of damage, HOORAY!

Please call to arrange that!

828-683-0025 or better yet, send me an e-mail!!

Best regards,

Ben

P.S. Regardless of what manufacturer you decide to go with, watch out for furnaces that don't have an ash pan, forcing you to either let the fire die down or you have to shove the burning wood aside in order to clean the ashes out of a 7-800 F firebox!

In the meantime, you're letting all of the heat out.

Then you have to start a fire in the dead of winter!

Remember, you're going to be doing this for the next 15-20 years at least!

Make sure it has a forced air fan. A number of people have reported unburnt wood without a forced air fan.

They have also said that they loose a lot of small pieces of burning wood when cleaning out the ashes from the firebox.

Get a round firebox - requiring only 3 welds to make - compare to 12 welds with the less efficient square box. Fires like to swirl around the round box, but don't like corners.

Stay away from electronics that WILL burn out with the first power surge or lightning strike.

Read the warranty!! Many manufacturers DO NOT cover labor and if they do you have to ship the furnace back to them - at YOUR expense!
 
Glad to hear that things are getting better Ben. Sounds like you guys will get your heads above water soon!

I am part of a family run business also and I understand some of what you are going thru with the growing pains. Keep trying to make the improvements needed for customer service and I'm sure you'll do fine.

I can't wait to fire up the furnace.....
 
i just went and got my deposit back on my harman indoor wood boiler. i ordered it in june, and when i was giving the third delivery date of dec 30th, i started to look elsewhere. i figured they had given me three dates thus far, no reason why they wouldnt give me a fourth date, like just about the time i am putting away my winter clothes. at this point, i would say if you are not buying something that actually already exists, you wont see it for this coming heating season. i see no reason why anyone from the dealer to the manufacturer would actually give you the real date you would get your hands on thier product.
 
Ben,

Happy to see that things should be getting better with the implemented changes and increased personnel and production.

Might I suggest you update your notice on your site's home page. It appears to be the same note that was up since early-mid August. Perhaps include a brief summary of what you've posted here, the steps that you've taken to improve service and delivery, and, most importantly, a weekly update as to where production is forecast relative to order date. Let folks know that you recognize you haven't met their expectations and that you have taken steps to correct past problems and to improve service. A customer who is treated like a mushroom (kept in the dark and fed BS) won't remain a customer very long. An informed customer, even when the information is not what they wanted to hear, is going to be more tolerant and will, in the end, be more likely to be satisfied because the extra effort was made.

I'm somewhat concerned due to the dates given in your post that my confirmation I got last week from Kelly at the factory may have been "overly optimistic". A weekly update such as "Orders placed the week of .... are to be manufactured 'this week'" posted on your home page would be a great suggestion for factory-direct cusomers. Short, simple, and to the point and keeps both waiting and prospective owners informed with a minimum of expenditure of time. Sure beats calling each one to give them an update individually.

Best regards,

Steve W.
 

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