How Bad Does Okanagan Suck as A Company, Let Me Tell You...

So last year I bought some of the first Okanagan DF to hit the stores. I spent about $1500 on the four ton I purchased. I discovered, not too long after the cold weather hit, that there was something wrong with these "premium" pellets. I have a gravity fed Wiseway Pellet Stove and it is designed to work best with softwood pellets and ideally, Doug Fir. Prior to last year I had great success with the stove and with Okanagan Doug Fir pellets.

I had probably gone through a dozen ton in the Wiseway in the years prior to Okie going out of business. Last year, with American Biomass as the new owner, all bets were off as to the quality of the pellets. They were no longer being made in the Bear Mountain facility they had been in years prior. The supplier I had been buying the pellets from was no longer carrying the Doug Fir so I sought out a new supplier. Initially, I was going to buy two ton Okie and two ton of Northern Warmth. My new supplier said he could get both, then he couldn't. To be on the safe side I purchased four ton of Okie Doug Fir for about $1500.

I picked them up over the late summer and early fall and started burning the pellets shortly after that. It wasn't long before I was having trouble with the performance of my stove. As I had mentioned here in another thread, the only change was the "new" Okie DF. It was a different color, different texture and the size of some of the pellets were at least an inch and a half. In a gravity fed stove the size of the pellets alone was an issue.

I contacted Chris Basinger in early 2018, sent him pictures of the pellets, described the issues I was having and spoke with him at length on the phone. He acknowledged there were issues with some of the early pellets from 2018. He offered to take back roughly 40 bags that hadn't been used and provide me with a complimentary ton for the winter of 2018-2019. He also told me to use BT Pellets in Bristol, CT as my supplier.

I started picking up pellets from BT. They had tons on hand. The guy who loaded up my pickup truck said they don't sell much of the DF. So, I started my attempts to contact Chris Basinger to make arrangements for my complimentary ton. No response. That is, until a short while ago when I heard from the VP of Production, Bob Davis. It was his claim that he had nothing for me to which I say BULLS#$T. I saw pallet after pallet of Okie DF just last weekend when I picked up a ton a BT. He told me to contact him in 6-12 weeks to see if he might be able to help me then.

So, this is how Okanagan chooses to treat a customer who has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $6k in the last four years on their product (and $740 so far this year). Fine, they can go to hell. They make a lousy product and they hire people who say one thing and do another. What a s%!@#y company.

 

Bob Davis told just me a have a bad attitude and he's not going to honor Chris Basinger offer. That's funny, I spent $1500 on garbage last year and it's my fault for being upset that a deal I had worked out with the former Sales Director is not being honored by the VP of Production. Let this serve as a warning to anyone considering doing business with Okanagan/American Biomass.

 

My situation is similar with a much different result. I've been burning Vermont's for several years. This year's early buy pellets, dusty, dirty, less heat than in years past. I email the company and Vermont called me back. I was told that they had tried an additive during the drying process and it caused issues. Rick from VWP called my local distributor (Fredrickson Farm) and instructed them to comp me a ton free with no return required on the original bags. I've yet to crack open the new bags but have been assured the issue with the pellets has been rectified.... Will let you all know asap.

 

VWP really stands behind their product, and that can be a rare thing these days. Nice little company.

 

Makes you wonder why AB wouldn't honor the agreement, and lose a paying customer .. Kinda defeats the purpose of why they bought the brand name, in the first place.

 

Bob Davis blew me off telling me to contact him in six to twelve weeks. He "might" have something for me then. I told him that Chris Basinger had told me he would credit one of the dealers for a ton and have me pick it up. Bob Davis lied and said NONE of his accounts in CT had any DF left in stock. I know it's a lie because I had been to one of the dealers the prior weekend picking up a ton and they had PLENTY of DF in stock. They still have stock as of today. Chris would have contacted the dealer, credited him a ton AND would have made me a customer of the dealer and a loyal customer of Okie. Instead, I got the distinct impression by the 6-12 week BS that Bob Davis had absolutely no interest in honoring the agreement that I had with Chris. It's too bad that most of my conversations with Chris were on the phone and not through email. He acknowledged each of the issues I had with the early Okie DF ranging from the pellets crumbling to dust to being upwards of 2.25 inches long (really screwing up my gravity fed stove). I posted a picture of the DF pellets as compared to the REAL Okie Platinum pellets from before the company went bust and AB bought the name.

 

Seems that a good strategy would be to buy a few bags of what you intend to burn late in the season and see how they work out... if they burn well, pull the trigger on a few tons from the same lot for the following season. If they don’t burn well, try another brand until you find something you like... I’ve jumped in a pool enough times when a friend told me the water is “fine” and realized that our definitions of “fine” are completely different.. Since then, I’ve learned to stick my toe in the water to check for myself... Of course, the above strategy would assume one has plenty of room for storage... sucks to be stuck with a bunch of product that doesn’t meet your expectations. Maybe you can resell any remaining pellets to recoup some of your losses.. Thanks for sharing your experience here...

 

Hey unbidden- My VTs have been horrible, I thought it was my stove, dusty and bad black soot on my glass, yet MWP is fine, do you have a contact number? I bought mine in May from Robbins, in Oxford ,MA

 

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I just called and Rick will be calling me back.

 

So Rick called back, I told him the issues, and that I burned only 8 bags of his product and I was not looking for anything, his concern was that I would not buy VT' or from Robbins again, told him that is not an issue, but made it clear they did not burn like Vermonts. As above he stated to get product out quicker he used a short cut. He is personally driving down 25 bags to me next week. I explained I do not burn more than 1-2 tons per year, so I was not looking for anything major. This service alone will keep me with Vermonts. As a former Corporate Manager and Business Owner, I was very happy!!

 

Rick was the guy that called me also. I've yet to open one of the new ton bags but I'm now half way through the second "bad" ton and the pellets are less dusty and burning hotter, cleaner.

 

Well, there you have it. Okanagan blows off a customer who has bought the brand for years and literally spent thousands of dollars on their product while the folks at VWP go out of their way to make sure their customers are happy.

 

yea.....I cant speak for the folks from Okanagan, because I don't, and wont, sell their product, but the folks from Vermont seem to be a nice bunch!

 

seems to me you have a SPECIAL stove,and are being a crybaby.

 

Paul got some 'special' Okanagans.. that's for sure.

 

Can't speak for the Okie DF's but their platinum's sucks as they produce a lot of ash and the small gain in heat they produce over let's say MWP is not worth the extra money to purchase them. Not again and if they are in fact LG's I will make sure I don't ever purchase them

 

Yeah, me too with the OP's. Only thing worse that I've burned for ash was Thermaglows. I only put two bags in the P43 and went back to the TSC's. The P61 gets all the garbage pellets - so it got the other 18 bags of Okie Plats.

 

I have no working knowledge of the Wiseway, other than the fact that they are a gravity fed unit.....are they super picky about what they burn?

 

Yes, stove was designed for softwoods