Grippa Tank

[Prehistoric]

I am looking at getting a new system later this year, 500l delivery only. I know Grippa get a lot of stick but their systems look good. Are they really that bad a company?

 

[ched999uk]

Just look at this thread: https://windowcleaningforums.co.uk/threads/window-cleaning-van-supplier-issue.39992/
There are a few who guessed it would be Grippa even though it wasn't! That, to me is quite telling!
That said I did but through floor rollers from them and they have been fine, they even arrived earlier than I was told when I ordered them.
I guess it depends on how close you are and if you can do diy stuff as that might be quicker and easier if a small issue did arise.

 

[spruce]

I am looking at getting a new system later this year, 500l delivery only. I know Grippa get a lot of stick but their systems look good. Are they really that bad a company?

Scottish recommends them. If you want to buy one of their systems, then it's your decision. Let us know how you get on.

 

[Part Timer]

Just look at this thread: https://windowcleaningforums.co.uk/threads/window-cleaning-van-supplier-issue.39992/
There are a few who guessed it would be Grippa even though it wasn't! That, to me is quite telling!
That said I did but through floor rollers from them and they have been fine, they even arrived earlier than I was told when I ordered them.
I guess it depends on how close you are and if you can do diy stuff as that might be quicker and easier if a small issue did arise.

That's because they live free of charge in @P4dstar head

 

[Iron Giant]

Based on what I know, I would never consider them for anything, not even a brush, although just had a look and they no longer sell Gardiner brushes etc, I'd say this is also very telling.

 

[spruce]

Couldn't find Gardiner poles on their site either.

 

[P4dstar]

I have a 500l Grippa delivery only system that is about to be for sale

 

[P4dstar]

That's because they live free of charge in @P4dstar head

I mean… the shoe fits on that one.

 

[P4dstar]

I am looking at getting a new system later this year, 500l delivery only. I know Grippa get a lot of stick but their systems look good. Are they really that bad a company?

The systems are great, but thats where it stops IMO. @Part Timer is only half joking about them living rent free in my head. Not so much anymore but certainly for a long time they made my life stressful.

I had a 650 litre system from Grippa, all well and good fitted on my drive. 12 months later I bought a 500L system. Looking at it when it was delivered I thought something was wrong with the sizing. It seemed too small. I got my tape measure out and worked out that it wasn't the 500 litre was too small it was the 650 litre was too big. I took this up with Oliver who told me that I had been upgraded free of charge to and 850 litre and that this should be fine based on manufacturers spec of the van. He pinned this on a staff member who no longer worked for them saying he said he had told me. Eventually we agreed for me to take it to the weigh bridge and see what it said, it was well over and they agreed to change it out for an actual 650 litre system. There was no rush on this and I had them do the floor in speed liner at the same time. They left the original 850 litre cabinet in front of it which was taller than the tank and looked odd but I chalked that up to experience.

The smaller system had an electric reel mounted on top (I think at the same time as the speedliner). Top of the range, stainless steel. In terms of attention to detail they bolted through the tank. They made it water tight but I have since discovered there is an easy way to mount these using rapid rail and the tanks own mounting points. It gives a much better finish and is removable without damage. This reel was burning through fuses. Because of the design you couldn't use it manually. Mounted on the top of the tank requiring you to get in the van hunched over and turn the reel. It requires 4 turns of the handle to turn the drum once so absolutely not feasible. This took that van out of action. There was a delay fixing it, Oliver came out himself and fitted a control panel, it was however fixed.

Next that reel came off its runners, it has bearings at the side. One of my chaps tried to fix it but couldn't. Again there was a delay but they got it sorted. Justin even came out to me at a weekend to sort it.

Getting these things fixed was always a hassle. I had to keep on pressuring and pestering but they got there in the end. It had a huge disruption to the business and I was reluctant to use them again.

another year goes by and I wanted a hot water system. Had I opted for a cabinet or hotbox I would have blocked access to the Grippa cabinet where the pumps etc are installed. I also needed the floor of my second van protecting as the Raptor liner we had used had not taken to the bed. They were of course capable to removing and reinstalling their own tank. With this in mind I reluctantly went back to them.

This order was huge, somewhere in the region of 8.5k including 2 further electric stainless reels and control arms. Booked in for about 6 weeks later, the week running up to Easter.

I couldn't afford to be off the road and we were working the easter bank holidays so I booked a hire van with them and confirmed if they weren't complete by the Thursday we could maintain use of the hire van through the weekend. Thursday morning they confirmed it would not be ready. Then at 1pm they suddenly decided it was ready and needed to be collected. We downed tools and travelled cross country to collect the van. It was half completed, one side was working and I believe the charging port wasn't connected. They promised to be out the next week to complete it. The order also had some consumables lumped in, they said they would bring them with them.

After a lot of chasing just over a month later they came to finish the job. They forgot the consumables (filters etc) and said they would send them out. I was still chasing these in November of that year. Eventually I took them to court. Once you take someone to court you agree that what happens at court or with mediation is private and confidential so I can't share that other than to say my problem was resolved.

I can tell you generally what would happen in the run up, particularly if a company was well versed in being taken to court...

You apply online and the defendant automatically have 14 days to respond.
A defendant who knows what they're doing would respond at 4pm on the 14th day asking for an extension. This is automatically allowed and provides a further 21 days.
At the end of the 21 days, right at the end of the day an experienced defendant might respond saying they owe nothing but agreeing to mediation.
Mediation isn't run with both people present (or on the phone together) the mediator speaks to the claimant, then calls the defendant, then back the other way until there is a resolution or a decision to go to court.
Should the defendant agree they owe the money at this point they will agree a certain time frame to pay and all is resolved. Unless of course the defendant doesn't pay, then you can go back to the court and get a bailiff. A particularly annoying defendant might pay late.

Back to the actual system... I attempted to get these problems resolved. In the midst of all of this I had a blood clot on my lung so eventually, just over a year after this order all kicked off I decided to leave the below issues and drop the stress. The stress of dealing with compulsive liars was not worth the hassle. Subsequently they were evicted from my head. They do occasionally turn up to stay now and again when I have the opportunity to tell people of these problems....

Controller mounted wonky, 5 holes in the cabinet - Oliver agreed a replacement cabinet door needed to be fitted. It was also mounted with different bolt types as if they mounted it with whatever was lying around the office.
One of the stainless reels snapped and then the motor stopped working, making an awful noise - Oliver agreed to fix this/look into what had caused it.
The Exhaust on the heater pointed at the through the floor roller guides. Because of this the fumes came back into the van - After a lot of back and forth where Oliver kept saying he couldn't point it out the front of the van because it would fail when the vehicle was moving (very odd thing to keep saying when I was asking for it to come out of the side away from the holes) he agreed to"look at" this also.

One big issue was the batteries. They were always showing the BAT warning. We charged them regularly and there was no reason for this. Despite agreeing to send an engineer to fix the issues above he advised there would be a call out fee if they determined it was our fault. I wouldn't agree to this as we had issues that we had already agreed, as such there should be no need for a call out fee. They had already made me take them to court over consumables so they had lost integrity already and couldn't be trusted to make this decision. They made this a sticking point and would spend weeks not responding before trying to get me to agree.
Upon further inspection those batteries were a cheaper brand than that I was originally sold also. Further batteries continued to fail afterwards too.

The actual fixes I ended up with....

Controller - Nothing, still wonky with extra holes but it works
Stainless reel - Sold it on eBay, got £30 I think. It was likely worth more as scrap
Exhaust - Had this rerouted by a local webasto fella. He also found they had rested the fuel line over the original exhaust. It had melted to the exhaust itself. Cost approx £200
The Webasto unit also failed, under warranty the same chap did a repair. He advised we should use a mix of 80/20 coolant not 50/50
Batteries - Eventually (very recently) found that they used a 12mm cable from the batteries to the mounting point but a 16mm cable between the batteries which was causing the issue.

Use them if you like. They are capable of resolving problems. They don't set out to do a bad job but then nor do most cowboy builders. Problems come up during the process and they don't resolve them.

 

[spruce]

The systems are great, but thats where it stops IMO. @Part Timer is only half joking about them living rent free in my head. Not so much anymore but certainly for a long time they made my life stressful.

I had a 650 litre system from Grippa, all well and good fitted on my drive. 12 months later I bought a 500L system. Looking at it when it was delivered I thought something was wrong with the sizing. It seemed too small. I got my tape measure out and worked out that it wasn't the 500 litre was too small it was the 650 litre was too big. I took this up with Oliver who told me that I had been upgraded free of charge to and 850 litre and that this should be fine based on manufacturers spec of the van. He pinned this on a staff member who no longer worked for them saying he said he had told me. Eventually we agreed for me to take it to the weigh bridge and see what it said, it was well over and they agreed to change it out for an actual 650 litre system. There was no rush on this and I had them do the floor in speed liner at the same time. They left the original 850 litre cabinet in front of it which was taller than the tank and looked odd but I chalked that up to experience.

The smaller system had an electric reel mounted on top (I think at the same time as the speedliner). Top of the range, stainless steel. In terms of attention to detail they bolted through the tank. They made it water tight but I have since discovered there is an easy way to mount these using rapid rail and the tanks own mounting points. It gives a much better finish and is removable without damage. This reel was burning through fuses. Because of the design you couldn't use it manually. Mounted on the top of the tank requiring you to get in the van hunched over and turn the reel. It requires 4 turns of the handle to turn the drum once so absolutely not feasible. This took that van out of action. There was a delay fixing it, Oliver came out himself and fitted a control panel, it was however fixed.

Next that reel came off its runners, it has bearings at the side. One of my chaps tried to fix it but couldn't. Again there was a delay but they got it sorted. Justin even came out to me at a weekend to sort it.

Getting these things fixed was always a hassle. I had to keep on pressuring and pestering but they got there in the end. It had a huge disruption to the business and I was reluctant to use them again.

another year goes by and I wanted a hot water system. Had I opted for a cabinet or hotbox I would have blocked access to the Grippa cabinet where the pumps etc are installed. I also needed the floor of my second van protecting as the Raptor liner we had used had not taken to the bed. They were of course capable to removing and reinstalling their own tank. With this in mind I reluctantly went back to them.

This order was huge, somewhere in the region of 8.5k including 2 further electric stainless reels and control arms. Booked in for about 6 weeks later, the week running up to Easter.

I couldn't afford to be off the road and we were working the easter bank holidays so I booked a hire van with them and confirmed if they weren't complete by the Thursday we could maintain use of the hire van through the weekend. Thursday morning they confirmed it would not be ready. Then at 1pm they suddenly decided it was ready and needed to be collected. We downed tools and travelled cross country to collect the van. It was half completed, one side was working and I believe the charging port wasn't connected. They promised to be out the next week to complete it. The order also had some consumables lumped in, they said they would bring them with them.

After a lot of chasing just over a month later they came to finish the job. They forgot the consumables (filters etc) and said they would send them out. I was still chasing these in November of that year. Eventually I took them to court. Once you take someone to court you agree that what happens at court or with mediation is private and confidential so I can't share that other than to say my problem was resolved.

I can tell you generally what would happen in the run up, particularly if a company was well versed in being taken to court...

You apply online and the defendant automatically have 14 days to respond.
A defendant who knows what they're doing would respond at 4pm on the 14th day asking for an extension. This is automatically allowed and provides a further 21 days.
At the end of the 21 days, right at the end of the day an experienced defendant might respond saying they owe nothing but agreeing to mediation.
Mediation isn't run with both people present (or on the phone together) the mediator speaks to the claimant, then calls the defendant, then back the other way until there is a resolution or a decision to go to court.
Should the defendant agree they owe the money at this point they will agree a certain time frame to pay and all is resolved. Unless of course the defendant doesn't pay, then you can go back to the court and get a bailiff. A particularly annoying defendant might pay late.

Back to the actual system... I attempted to get these problems resolved. In the midst of all of this I had a blood clot on my lung so eventually, just over a year after this order all kicked off I decided to leave the below issues and drop the stress. The stress of dealing with compulsive liars was not worth the hassle. Subsequently they were evicted from my head. They do occasionally turn up to stay now and again when I have the opportunity to tell people of these problems....

Controller mounted wonky, 5 holes in the cabinet - Oliver agreed a replacement cabinet door needed to be fitted. It was also mounted with different bolt types as if they mounted it with whatever was lying around the office.
One of the stainless reels snapped and then the motor stopped working, making an awful noise - Oliver agreed to fix this/look into what had caused it.
The Exhaust on the heater pointed at the through the floor roller guides. Because of this the fumes came back into the van - After a lot of back and forth where Oliver kept saying he couldn't point it out the front of the van because it would fail when the vehicle was moving (very odd thing to keep saying when I was asking for it to come out of the side away from the holes) he agreed to"look at" this also.

One big issue was the batteries. They were always showing the BAT warning. We charged them regularly and there was no reason for this. Despite agreeing to send an engineer to fix the issues above he advised there would be a call out fee if they determined it was our fault. I wouldn't agree to this as we had issues that we had already agreed, as such there should be no need for a call out fee. They had already made me take them to court over consumables so they had lost integrity already and couldn't be trusted to make this decision. They made this a sticking point and would spend weeks not responding before trying to get me to agree.
Upon further inspection those batteries were a cheaper brand than that I was originally sold also. Further batteries continued to fail afterwards too.

The actual fixes I ended up with....

Controller - Nothing, still wonky with extra holes but it works
Stainless reel - Sold it on eBay, got £30 I think. It was likely worth more as scrap
Exhaust - Had this rerouted by a local webasto fella. He also found they had rested the fuel line over the original exhaust. It had melted to the exhaust itself. Cost approx £200
The Webasto unit also failed, under warranty the same chap did a repair. He advised we should use a mix of 80/20 coolant not 50/50
Batteries - Eventually (very recently) found that they used a 12mm cable from the batteries to the mounting point but a 16mm cable between the batteries which was causing the issue.

Use them if you like. They are capable of resolving problems. They don't set out to do a bad job but then nor do most cowboy builders. Problems come up during the process and they don't resolve them.

I hope everyone reading this will think twice about dealing with them, including @Prehistoric .

My advice is to get onto Google Earth with their address and search for their unit.