How to turn a negative into a positive? Well that’s what we hope we can do here:
First, an apology. Recently a small, but significant percentage of you (our customers) have had problems with your Aqua-dapters, and not only do we realize how frustrating this is, when all you want to do is get on with your job, it’s not the experience we want you to have with our product.
The good news is, we’ve identified and resolved the issue, we’re replacing F-O-C any units that don’t work as they should, and we’ve further improved the materials we use.
What’s the problem?
Over a period of time, the Aqua-dapter becomes “stiffer” i.e. the carriage doesn’t move freely up and down inside the body of the unit. This in turn makes it more difficult to switch the flow on, or off, starting with 2 pulls being required and eventually becoming more difficult to operate.
What’s the cause?
As you can imagine, it’s been our top priority to find out why this was happening, and we have now tracked down the 2 causes:
- we were supplied with 2 sub-standard batches of plastic
- the Aluminium tubing used in the same production run had an inconsistent Inside Diameter, not visible to the naked eye, but enough to cause a problem
The sub-standard batches of plastic were slightly porous and so, after the Aqua-dapter was in use for a few weeks in an (obviously) damp environment, the plastic would swell, only fractionally. When the Aluminium tube is the correct Inside Diameter along it’s entire length, this doesn’t usually cause a problem. However, with the inconsistent tube the plastic starts to become tight inside the body.
The sub-standard (therefore weaker) plastic is also the reason for the breaking of some of the outlet pipes, which at first we couldn’t understand because these shouldn’t break unless under extreme stress.
To compound the problem, after we had initially identified the issue with the Aluminium tube, we took delivery of what we thought was better plastic, as the finish on it was better and more consistent, and we sent some replacements from this stock. It turned out that although this plastic was aesthetically better, it was no better in terms of water absorption, and so that batch had to be rejected too!
What have we done to solve the issues?
First we went through our entire stock tested and rejected any that showed the slightest indication of the problem occurring.
We rejected both sub-standard batches of plastic and took further expert advice on the plastics we use. We have now made a change to ensure that from now on the plastic will have a better finish and be more consistent in damp/wet conditions and extreme temperatures.
We dismantled the rest of our assembled stock and commissioned new tooling, and an extra step in the manufacturing process, to take the fractional inconsistencies out of the Aluminium tube.
We’ve done heat, immersion and durability tests on the new plastic and sent out units from the latest production run to some of our most vigorous testers!
Which Aqua-dapters are affected?
Mk2 Aqua-dapters purchased at the Cleaning Show and any despatches up until 14th April 2011 could be affected.
Unfortunately this may include some Aqua-dapters that were sent out as replacements, as we learnt about the problem with our plastic later.
How does this affect our Customers?
We’re very sorry that some of you have experienced these problems, and as you may be able to tell from the above, it’s been almost as frustrating for us as for you.
What’s most upsetting is that the reputation of our company, and of the product could be detrimentally affected by these issues.
We will be contacting all of our customers soon to explain the above and of course to offer replacements under the guarantee.
This is where we hope to turn a negative into a positive: at least you will have opportunity to test us, as it’s our intention to offer the very best Customer Service.
If you do have a problem with your Aqua-dapter, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the Contact Page and we’ll endeavour to get back to you promptly.
We have a dedicated returns address, and a returns procedure to make sure all returns are dealt with properly (we’ll send you the brief instructions when you contact us, or see them here). Please do not send returns to the registered office address as this will severely delay your repair/replacement.
We value all feedback from Customers, so whatever your comments, please get in touch, and if you have had a problem with your Aqua-dapter we hope to restore your confidence in us and in the product as quickly as possible!
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