After more than 4 years of waiting, our SoilKind finally arrived and we have been able to use it since half of March. We were quite well prepared and didn't take any chances after the long wait, only put in the basics of organic fruit and vegetable leftovers, cut it up in small ca. 5 cm pieces.
Found out that banana peels better be cut in even smaller pieces, to help avoid the annoying squeeking when fibres get stuck in between paddles and the first chamber.
The squeeking and working sounds are more intense than I expected, but it seemed that we were getting the squeeking under control in the 3rd cycle, with the 2 cm max banana peel change. The device was running about all day long though, I thought that would only be the case during the compost cycle. But perhaps this is a malfunction in the one we received.
I was looking forward to the 4th compost cycle, but we never made it that far :-( After emptying my 3th batch of "compost", the morning of 7 April, I put in a handful of potato peels. And noticed after a few hours that these still hadn't been transferred into the composting chamber. Everything was nicely cut up and dried though.
The filter and all cleanable things were fine. The transfer channel was fine, the opening at the bottom of the paddle also fine. I could manually scoop some of the dry matter into the transfer channel / compost chamber and then the device would finally show the percentage of filling of the 2nd chamber increasing. But somehow it wouldn't transfer the dry matter from 1st to 2nd chamber itself.... and kept rotating and drying in the 1st chamber.... until it became a very very dusty matter.
Finally customer service replied that I should do the throw-out-process. I tried this for days but the device didn't succeed after hours of trying and giving problem codes.
After almost a week of baby-sitting the device and trying to get it to empty, I gave up and unplugged it. The WiFi connection had been lost 2 days earlier as well, also very suddenly.
I can guarantee with my hand on my heart that we have been very VERY careful with the device. Only vegetable / fruit left-overs. No cheese, pits, dairy or any weird things. Just peels, some strawberry crowns, eggshells, coffee grounds. Occasional splash of water as adviced by the customer service to help with the squeeking of the fibers getting caught.
It was nicely located between our kitchen counter and fridge.
Lots of space to breath in the back.
But looking back, perhaps the problem of the 1st chamber keeping matter in there too long, was already a factor here.
The stuff that comes out looks nice. I think it is something else than regular compost, it is a nice dry matter. It does mold on your plants though so you need to work it in the soil well.
So..... after over 4 years of waiting (I was among the first 20 to pledge on Kickstarter in November 2020) we have had 3 weeks and 3 batches of "compost". Which was really nice :-)
Putting leftover greens into the device was heavenly compared to having it on your kitchen counter. The "compost" was nice to produce, I really like the idea!
But after 3 weeks we were left with a broken device and customer service is lacking in solving this issue. They want to pick up the SoilKind. Investigate what is the problem. And then.....? See if it can be fixed.
So again.... we are in a long, long wait without any horizon of when we will FINALLY get a nicely functioning SoilKind in our home......
It broke April 7th. I have spent that week baby-sitting the damn device. Eventually customer service told me they want to retrieve the device to check it out. For that they will send us a return package so we can carefully wrap the whole thing up in the right way. But there are problems in that regard, so it would be end of April I was told. I would be contacted if the return wrapping items were on there way end of April.
Today it is May 9th.
Over a month later, after the device stopped working.
Haven't heard anything from customer service the last weeks.
Hanging in total limbo about if we will ever get a working SoilKind here. It is very disappointing....
After only 3 weeks of use and with these problems, it is pretty clear the device itself is the problem and you shouldn't have a customer wait for weeks on end without any solution in sight.
I have no idea how long it will take for me to get the whole wrapping up package.
No idea how long it will take afterwards for it to be picked up.
No idea how long it will take then for them to check the device and come to a conclusion.
No idea if they have to replace something...? And then, it might take weeks / months again for them to have that replacement available...? And all the time we are waiting-waiting-waiting again....? For the 5th year now....?
This should not be our problem. We should just receive a well working device ASAP. A good customer service would not let this drag out s...