Applied Power news [RE-wrenches]

[Jeff Clearwater, Ecovillage Design]

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Hey Folks,

I feel obliged to chime in here.  I too have been an AEE dealer for 
23 years and had visited the Redway store many a time (and the 
Garberville store before that) and developed a few long term 
friendships with the staff.  Dave Katz once entrusted me with $12K 
worth of equipment for a solar concert in Arcata in '78 after meeting 
me once.  As many have pointed out Dave is an honorary elder for us 
Wrenches.  We are forever grateful to the way that Dave and all at 
AEE paved for us all.

And like Jeff Y.  I probably won't be ordering more from Schott in 
the future.  I won't bore you with the whole story but the customer 
service and shipping department and general beauracracy has gone way 
down hill and they caused me much hassle on my last big job.    They 
have a policy that you have to pay for equipment shipped again (pay 
for the equipment - not just the shipping) even if its there mistake 
they sent you the wrong stuff.   i.e - If they make a mistake in 
shipping then you either have to wait till they recieve the wrongly 
shipped items back - or you have to pay for both sets of items if 
you want them quick.  They shipped me 4 wrong-voltage Sunny Boys so 
they wanted me to pay another $7k on a prepaid order to get the right 
units!  I became not a 23-year customer/dealer but just another bloke 
not to trust.  This is NOT the AEE of the past.

I guess that's the price of size and beauracracy.  I wish them luck 
but if they want to stay in the game the name of the game is really 
supporting the dealers in the field.  For me Bob Maynard (Energy 
Outfitters) and Windy Dankoff  of Dankoff Solar have become the new 
"AEEs" - personal service, small enough to care and not have outrages 
impersonal policies in place.  (...  I in no way work for those 
guys... just a plug for the "smaller" guys).

For what it's worth.

Jeff Clearwater
Ecovillage Design


>"Schott Applied Power has completely shut down all retail operations, and
>are concentrating on dealer support."
>
>We also liked working with the folks at Applied Power and purchased from
>them for many years until they became part of Schott, then their dealer
>support and service went downhill fast for us.  I don't pretend to know what
>happened, but things got so bad we finally closed our account.  Maybe
>somebody there finally realized that quality dealers and installers are very
>hard to find, and once you take their business for granted or under-sell
>them you better be able to install all that stuff in your warehouse
>yourself.
>
>Jeff Yago
>
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Clearwater
Ecovillage Design Associates
Home, Community and Village Scale Renewable Energy Systems

2525 Arapahoe Ave, Suite E4, #280
Boulder, CO 80302
1-800-440-2523 PIN7071
Fax:  720-528-7813
clrwater at earthlink.net
jeffc at ic.org

Council Member - Ecovillage Network of the Americas - http://www.ecovillage.org
Founder:  Ecovillage Research, Development, and Demonstration Program:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~clrwater/RDD/rdd.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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