annsemple on wed 6 nov 02
A post from Rob Hauger at Olympic has asked me to 'tell the whole story' in
the interest of fairness, concerning the problems I had getting my Olympic
Kiln, and for that reason, I post the following:
In November of 2001 I ordered and paid for a 12 cu ft Olympic front
load electric kiln, 240V with heavy duty elements and a Bartlett
controller. The cost of this order (in Canadian dollars) was $6,695.00. I
was told delivery would be about the third week in December. It arrived on
January 15, 2002 and I hired some people to help me moved it into the studio
kiln room, and then an electrician to hook it up.
The electrician was unable to come until nearly 2 weeks after the kiln
was situated in the kiln room, and when he hooked it up, he checked on the
power it was drawing - a whopping 96 volts! The panel on the front of the
kiln claimed the kiln would draw 52 volts, so I called the Vancouver Island
Pottery warehouse, from whom I had ordered the kiln to see what I should do,
and on their recommendation I called Rob Haugen at Olympic. He suggested I
use the kiln as it was as long as it didn't trip the power breaker, so I
fired it up, and the first time it didn't trip the breaker. The second time
it did. In the meantime I had done some investigating, and the only reason
it could be pulling so much voltage was that it was wired for 208 volts, not
240 V as ordered. I was strongly cautioned not to fire it like this.
It was now the middle of February, and I called both Mr. Haugen and
Scott at Vancouver Island Pottery Warehouse, who also called Mr. Haugen, and
was told a new set of elements would be sent immediately.
I would have a hard time remembering details of these things except that
on the advise of my sister, I wrote down contacts and events as they
occurred, and am referring to them now.
After five weeks (March 25) there was no sign of the elements, so I
called Olympic again, and spoke with Mr. Haugen, who apologized, and said he
had forgotten about it, as the note had been shuffled to the bottom of his
pile, but would attend to it immediately, and send them out 2nd day express.
April 3rd I called again as there was no sign of them, and was assured
they had been sent and told if they hadn't arrived in another couple of
days, a second set would be sent out.
April 9 I called again, Mr. Haugen couldn't take my call, but a very
pleasant lady named Donna checked for me and said she would look after
sending the elements for me and call me back with a tracking number.
On April 11, I called again, Mr. Haugen was again unavailable, but I was
assured and the elements were being made at that time,and the next day Donna
called and left me a tracking number. The elements took another three weeks
to arrive, (not exactly second day delivery) and the electrician couldn't
come out another couple of days, but then I thought I was home free.
BUT when the electrician opened the package, there were only 5
replacement elements in it - the kiln had 9. When Scott (at Pottery
Warehouse) called Olympic, he was told there were only 5 elements in the
kiln, so I took a digital photo, and sent one to him, from which he
confirmed there were 9 elements, at which time Mr. Haugen suggested that by
changing 5 elements, the voltage drawn would be lowered sufficiently to run
the kiln. While I had been involved in these telephone/e-mail
conversations, the electrician was checking out the kiln, and when I came
back, pointed out to me some cracks that had developed since he had first
wired it. Since I hadn't opened the kiln since the second unsuccessful
firing of it, I hadn't seen them, and I called Scott back yet again, and
then sent off some more digital photos.
At this point, Vancouver Island Pottery Supply called Greenbarn,(their
sister company on the mainland), who called Plainsman clay , and they did
the negotiating with Olympic who agreed to replace the kiln, this time
recommending fibre in the roof and door to avoid stress in those areas. I
agreed, on the condition that the kiln be coated with ITC. Olympic agreed to
pay for the manpower to remove the original kiln and move in the
replacement, and the electrician to disconnect and reconnect the kiln.
The replacement Kiln arrived on September 04, and the wiring was fine.
But the kiln was a 10 cu.ft one instead of the 12 cu ft ordered. So once
again I called Scott, and Plainsman clay contacted Olympic, who ultimately
agreed after a couple more weeks to reimburse me $500(US) for the
difference in kiln size should I decide to keep this kiln.
By now it was 11 months since I ordered and paid for this kiln, and if
I request yet another replacement, there's no telling when it will appear...
I opted to keep the 10 cu ft kiln.
Then I had to have all my new kiln shelves cut to fit the new kiln. And
that was done on last Wednesday. I finally fired on the weekend.
In all of this, Olympic has responded to problems fairly but slowly.
However, there are no excuses for any of the errors made, nor for
suggesting use of a kiln wired with the wrong elements, or for not knowing
how many elements are in a kiln made at the company. Surely there is some
kind of quality control at Olympic? And for one order to have generated so
many mistakes is untenable.
Ann -in the south west regions of Vancouver Island off the coast of British
Columbia, Canada, surrounded by evergreens, clean air, two muddy messy
dogs and two demented cats.
annsemple@shaw.ca
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