Sykes

Good company to deal with.
Good value for money.
Prompt & comprehensive paperwork trail, following visit.
Awarded only four stars, due to having to contact the engineer after they left, to sort out a small issue; otherwise, would have been a five.

We've been burning only kiln-dried oak logs, for several years, on our wood burner, so we're very familiar with the product, which we've purchased from most of the well known on-line retailers at one time or another.
We've also purchased from this company once before, and received a satisfactory product.
A recent crate has been very disappointing, though.
The wood's much harder to burn, and burns with a lower temperature than we've ever had before. The burn is also sooty & smoky.
It seems likely that the wood's not been kiln dried properly, or worse, not at all.
The logs are more dense than kiln dried oak normally is, and some even have blue mould on their surface; that did well to survive the 'Kiln Drying' process!

Whilst we appreciate that things go wrong sometimes, the quality of a company can be gauged by how they deal with problems.
Despite their website advertising that emails will be responded to 'within 2 business hours', we've had no response to our email highlighting the poor product quality, since sending it a week ago!
'Customer Services' turns out to be a 3rd party telephone answering service, who can only offer to send an email to this company, so the 'Help & Support' guidance on the website is misleading to say the least.

We'll send another email in the hope that we get a satisfactory response, but in the meantime, we have to warn other potential buyers, that there have been other, similar reviews over the last couple of months, which follow a similar thread...

Hopefully, directors Anna Ozolina, Dace Birstina, or Martins Sprancis will be in touch soon, to arrange a refund, or replacement crate.

We wanted to look at fitting-out our utility room, and had so far not enjoyed our experiences at several of the larger outlets. We regularly found poor communication, staff not bothering to review our room dimensions & requirements ahead of appointments (despite having emailed details well in advance) hard selling, poor quality, and failing to listen to our wishes - to name but a few frustrations.
We'd not used Howdens before, and made an appointment to visit Catterick branch - expecting a similar experience.
What we found couldn't have been further from the truth!
Meg was on time, communicated clearly, she was pleasant, knew the design software inside out (which made for a lot less wasted time, compared to other suppliers) knew the products really well, listened carefully to our brief, and couldn't have done more to hone the design until we were happy with the end result. Nothing was too much trouble.
Since our appointment Meg has continued to support our project, has been easy to reach, and responds quickly to requests for a call-back.
Any other staff we've spoken to at Catterick, have also been good, clear communicators, along with being friendly and helpful to deal with.

A breath of fresh air, and a credit to the Howdens brand. Well done Catterick team, and particularly top marks to Meg!