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Balcas Energy Reviews

4.7 Rating 1,665 Reviews

96 %

of reviewers recommend Balcas Energy

Company Reviews

About Balcas Energy:

Balcas Energy is part of Balcas, a natural leader in the world of timber.
We opened our first sawmill in 1962 and became one of the largest in the UK and Ireland. Our success came from our knowledge of and respect for timber. In our quest to make the most of every precious tree, Balcas Energy was born.

A co-product of our operations is pure sawdust. In 2004, using natural tree resin as a binder, our engineers pioneered the production of high quality wood pellets.

Originally known as brites, our high grade EN plus pellets have since grown to become 50% of our business. In 2016, Balcas purchased the UK’s largest wood pellet distribution company Forever Fuels and in 2019, with growth in mind, rebranded as Balcas Energy. Balcas Energy is proud to employ some of the most experienced biomass experts in the UK and Ireland and thanks to our advanced Combined Heat and Power plant, both of our production sites are self-sufficient.

Balcas Energy’s Invergordon and Enniskillen sites have production capacities of 120,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes of wood pellets respectively. Our operations are so efficient that we put surplus electricity back into the grid throughout the year.

Balcas employs over 380 people and an additional 300 are engaged in forest harvesting and haulage on our behalf.

Visit our Online Shop: https://balcasenergy.com/online-shop/

Visit Website

Phone:

02866411001

Email:

energy@balcas.com

Location:

75 Killadeas Road, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh
BT94 2ES

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Balcas Energy 5 star review on 9th February 2022

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 26th January 2022

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 17th January 2022

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 13th January 2022

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 7th November 2017

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 21st June 2017

Balcas Energy 5 star review on 23rd April 2017

1

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 3 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“They delivered what I ordered.”

Posted 6 years ago

“Turned up when they said. Took time to park considerately. Filled store and left DN confirming amount.”

Posted 7 years ago

“driver very good”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 7 years ago

“First order cancelled and I was Not informed. I had to ring to find out. Told in both occasions that I world be phoned the day before. I received No phone calls. I had to ring on both occasions to find out delivery time. Delivery driver very helpful and friendly, phoned in the morning then an hour prior to delivery. Very nice man :-)”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 7 years ago

“Your ordering system both on line and by phone is excellent. Your driver (Vic) is knowledgeable and expert. Painless Nick Parkeronskype's P”

(East Kilbride) - Posted 7 years ago

“Delivery on time as informed, driver pleasant and helpful.”

Posted 7 years ago

“The delivery driver was very good, very thorough and informative. He came at the expected time. However, there has been some confusion with the booking of the order. Verbal confirmation by telephone with the scheduling department is not sufficient to ensure a delivery with this company - you have to reply to the email. This was not made clear in my husbands conversation with the scheduling department so we expected the delivery 4 days ago. It came today and that's good, but during the last four days it has been a struggle to keep warm. I think there are some communications issues with the office and the other areas of the business. The motto is, order well before you need pellets especially during the winter or you may find yourself very cold for a while.”

Posted 7 years ago

Dear Customer Thank you for the kind feedback about our driver, who is part of a great team of drivers who we know are a real asset to the company. Yes, it is a good idea to order plenty early enough in the depths of winter, as all heating-fuel suppliers are very busy at that time. As your delivery requires our small 4-wheeler tanker this is even more prudent. As you could not take the delivery on the 12th due to no one being at home (as per your husbands conversation with our Transport Planner), we re-scheduled for the next available date. Kind regards Claire Hoyles Sales and Marketing Manager Kind regards Claire Hoyles Sales and Marketing Manager

Posted 7 years ago

“Gary kept us updated on time of arrival and was quick and efficient on site”

Posted 7 years ago

“Polite and cheerful delivery man.”

Posted 7 years ago

“The physical delivery was good but I cannot get a response from either email or telephone contact from the administration office regarding a query with the amount delivered and the price.”

Posted 7 years ago

“After initial problem with delivery date confirmation everything went according to plan, as usual”

(East Kilbride) - Posted 7 years ago

“You ignored our mutual agreement to fill up our store and only delivered 5 tonnes. I was informed you were arriving about 1.00pm and you arrived at noon.”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 8 years ago

Mr Hiram, I am sorry you were disappointed that you received the ordered quantity and that the truck was unable to arrive precisely at the estimated time. For future reference, if you want to adjust the arrangements in some way, please do not reply directly to our automated emails. As it explains in those emails, you should email sales@forever-fuels.com instead. Your email went to the forwarding101@forever-fuels.com address, which is for processing simple confirmations. If your request had been sent to the correct address, we could have tried but we could not have guaranteed the arrangements you requested. Other customers are likely to be delivered on the same run. We will aim to schedule our trucks to deliver as close as possible to their capacity, and there may therefore not be any excess to deliver however much is needed to fill you up. As it happens on this occasion, there was approximately 0.2 tonnes spare on the schedule, and the other customer took 0.3 tonnes less than they ordered, so we could have delivered upto 0.5 tonnes more if we had received an email to sales@forever-fuels.com instead of forwarding101@forever-fuels.com, but that may not be the case in future. You can always order a larger amount if you think you can take more. We also cannot guarantee that we will turn up precisely at the estimated time in future. Traffic and conditions at preceding customers may affect the timing, and may be compounded by the rules regarding drivers' hours. A discrepancy of an hour is not unusual.

Posted 8 years ago

“Hi Please can you make it a standing instruction for the driver to put the auger back on after he finishes. It was left off and we ran our of fuel twice before my wife called me to diagnose the problem. Also - on this occasion - the drive was left covered in very fine dusl that is proving tough to remove - hopefully it will go one it rains. Other than that very prompt and efficient. Thank you.”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 8 years ago

“Poor communications about what time for delivery. Everything else was good especially the delivery driver being polite and courteous regarding timings and the issues experienced.”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 8 years ago

“You note that suction was not used because the power supply was in the garage - in fact we have installed an external power supply to the manufacturers most recent spec to provide you with accessible power. I gather from the driver that the vehicle is not modern enough to be able to plug into it. It would not seem beyond the wit of man to make and carry a suitable adapter for such situations! You note that inlet & outlet pipes are not clearly marked - they are and if you wish I can send you a photo to confirm - please correct your records. The pellets were delivered at the agreed time & price and to the agreed quantity.”

Posted 8 years ago

Mr Law, The Delivery Report Form (DRF) that all drivers fill in upon completion of delivery did state "Yes" in response to the question "suction used?". I can confirm that suction/active venting was used during your delivery, the power source was the one in your garage. What I believe may be causing a bit of confusion is that the driver incorrectly used the box entitled "Suction not used because:" to input information about the site. The driver populated the corresponding box with "socket in the garage" in order to inform the account manager and assist any future drivers, who might struggle, in locating the power source for their active venting units. There are a couple of variants of active venting units present across the Forever Fuels fleet. The one onboard the vehicle that made the delivery to you has a 3pin 13amp plug. This is perfectly suitable for connection to a mains power supply at our customer's properties. It is not an issue with the vehicle being modern, rather the active venting unit is not one of our more recent purchases and therefore does not come as standard with the connection required for your external power supply. The vehicles we use in our fleet are all top of the range allowing us to deliver fuel to customers which meets the high levels of quality the company is known for. With regards to the labelled pipes. This appears to be a data input error. The driver has been spoken to about being more careful when populating the DRFs. The drivers are usually exceptionally diligent in their duties and testament to this was the fact I was able to look at a wealth of photos taken during previous deliveries and personally establish that the pipe labels are well positioned and easily visible. I appreciate the time you have taken to write a review and I welcome the positive comments you have included. I hope my response has helped clarify and answer your concerns. If you wish to have any further discussion please contact the head office and ask to speak with me. Kind Regards, Tim Finlay (Operations Manager - North)

Posted 8 years ago

“The delivery of your pellets went smoothly and cleanly. However, there are always problems with the order. Sometimes you don't deliver the requested amount, you've charged us twice for delivery (2 hoppers/silos), Every order we've placed since April last year has had problems with administration. Otherwise, the pellet quality and competitive prices are fine - thank you.”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 8 years ago

Jules, This was your fifth pair of deliveries from us. For your first, you ordered 6 tonnes between the two systems, and received 6.02 tonnes. Your second order was for 8 tonnes combined; you received 8.8 tonnes. Your third was for 6 tonnes, which you received exactly. Your fourth was for 8 tonnes - we delivered 8.02, albeit on separate dates for your two silos. And your latest was for 8 tonnes, with 8.12 tonnes delivered. The "problems with the order" probably relate to the fact that we insist that each delivery is treated separately. Even if the silos are on the same site, it is significantly less efficient for us to have to setup and breakdown twice than to deliver the whole amount to one silo, and we therefore insist that orders are dealt with separately. That also ensures that we have separate records for each delivery and can note any requirements and incidents relating to that installation (as required by ENplus). However, as you note, the prices are competitive - we have done away with delivery charges and automatically spread the cost between the various recipients on a run. On this occasion, Chris stretched the point and treated your two silos as one delivery, so it seems harsh to give customer service a bad review when they broke procedure to try to accommodate you. They will now be asked to account internally for this breach of procedure and (fortunately) they won't be much inclined to do it again when this is the thanks they get. Your problems relate primarily to the number and capacities of your boilers. According to our records, you have a 198 and a 99 kW boiler, each with a 4-tonne silo. If the boilers reflected the true level of demand, 4 tonne silos would be inadequate. In practice, the boilers seem to be drastically over-sized. The upside is that you don't need as many deliveries as you would expect for boilers and silos of that size. The downside is that your systems are probably running very inefficiently. Your 198 kW boiler, in particular, looks like it is getting through less than half the tonnage that you would expect for a boiler of that size. It looks unlikely even to use up the 1,314 hours of Tier 1 tariff in the commercial RHI (assuming you are somehow in the commercial RHI, because these boilers are too big for domestic). But systems should not be sized to run for only 1,314 hours (full-load equivalent), let alone less, whatever the incentives and whatever your installer may have told you. It will be short-cycling and modulating far more than is efficient. Going by your consumption and good industry practice, it looks like you would have been better off with approximately a single 150 kW boiler and a 10+ tonne silo, rather than nearly 300 kW between two systems with small silos. We will be happy to continue to meet your requirements with the high quality and competitive prices that you note, but you have been done no favours by your installer. You and we have to cope with the resulting inefficiencies, including the administrative nuisance (for both parties) of recording two separate deliveries for each of your systems. Merry Christmas.

Posted 8 years ago

“Driver and person who took the call were both very amiable. The problem is that the order size was less than we had asked for - 6tons vs. 9 tons ordered. Given the (understandably!) large delivery charge, this has left us out of pocket.”

(Avonmouth) - Posted 8 years ago

Will, You were charged exactly the same per tonne for 6 tonnes as you were quoted for 9 tonnes. That price was nearly £18/tonne lower than the price for your delivery on 1 Dec 2014. You have been left significantly in pocket. Merry Christmas.

Posted 8 years ago

“Some bags damaged and wet, otherwise good.”

(Bags) - Posted 8 years ago

“Delivery itself was great and Will, the driver, is always very good. However, your delivery charges are too high when it is supposedly an "in the area" delivery. Also, your order system needs improving as I always get the wrong pricing on the first order invoice which your staff inform me of ahead of time but still leaves an impression. Hope this helps to improve what is overall a good service.”

(Middlewich) - Posted 8 years ago

There are no delivery charges. Could you explain what you mean by this?

Posted 8 years ago

“We haven't received the delivery as you have changed carriers and they tried to deliver with a 12 tonne vehicle. We are now awaiting a delivery by van as they do not have a smaller vehicle and this will have to hand unloaded. We are not sure if this is happening today. Regards Jane and Ian Potts”

(Bags) - Posted 8 years ago

Dear Jane and Ian, Thanks for the review this was delivered shortly after your posting. The 12 Ton vehicle that would have attempted delivery would have been the same size as a 7.5T vehicle as it's simply the weight that differs. Never the less we are glad your redelivery went smoothly. We have made a note on our system as such for any future deliveries. We wish you a merry xmas.

Posted 8 years ago

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Balcas Energy is rated 4.7 based on 1,665 reviews