A frequently asked question if there ever was one. The best answer we can give is “as little time as possible”. That is our goal. Most orders ship within 24 hours. Some larger equipment orders may take an hour or two to test and assemble. If that is the case and your order is placed in the afternoon or even after hours, your equipment will probably not ship until the following business day.
Water Value Co. also handles orders for those hard to find replacement parts for water treatment controllers, tanks and internals along with a selection of media. The parts of a control valve for example, are not a very popular item and we may or may not have them in stock. A good example would be drive gears for a Fleck 5600 control valve. While we do try to maintain an inventory of those parts, sometimes they need to be ordered from Fleck which generally takes up to two weeks (or 10 business days) to arrive. Then they need to be shipped out to you. So as a trade off for the availability of these often non-popular components, you might have to wait a little while to get them. Pieces and parts that we know are not normally in stock will display a statement when you click to order them as to their backorder status.
But any of the components or systems that we display on the web site are normally maintained in stock. At this time we have two shipping locations available for our equipment. The closest shipping location to your zip code is the location we will ship from. For example, our two shipping locations are Phoenix, Arizona and Norton, Ohio. Should you place your order from Chicago, Illinois, your equipment will ship from Ohio. Should you place your order from Los Angeles, California, your order will ship from Arizona.
Because two pick-up times for the Ohio location are scheduled, you can expect a simple order to ship after 3:00PM EST the following business day. Simple orders include reverse osmosis systems, boxes of filter or softener media, certain tanks, UV filters and filter cartridges. Anything that is already packaged by the manufacturer can usually ship immediately. Systems such as water softeners, conditioners and automatic filters will take a bit longer to assemble, setup and package.
Control valves on water softeners and automatic backwashing filters require pre-configuration. The proper injector and drain controls must be installed based on the size of the media tank it will be mounted on. Tank jackets require measuring, cutting and installation along with packaging. These are the types of activities that might slow down the processing and shipping of an order.
The GE Merlin reverse osmosis system comes from GE pre-packaged in a box that does not contain a supply valve. We add the supply valve before the RO ships out, so a brief delay occurs when the box is opened and the valve is added. The box is then resealed and a sticker is placed to indicate that the valve is inside. That’s not much of a delay, but when you add up all of the GE Merlin’s that go out of the shipping docks in one day… You get the picture.
So what happens when an order is placed over the weekend or a holiday? On weekends and holidays, the OEMs are closed and so too are our offices. However, we do assign someone to monitor e-mail messages and orders from their home over the weekend and holidays. If enough orders come in, or large orders are placed, those will often times be processed over the weekend or holiday. We never really shut down. That way the OEMs can have the orders compiled and waiting for them when they return on Monday morning or the day after a holiday and we are not buried in order processing either.
It does not matter if your order is for a $1.25 o-ring or $5,500 worth of softening and filtering equipment. All orders are processed accurately and with speed of shipment in mind. Our years of experience in this business ensures that your order placement makes it from our door to yours accurately and in as little time as possible.
After your order ships, you will receive a tracking number sent to the email address that you entered when you used our secure checkout form. This tracking number can be used to view your package(s) progress as it makes its way to your door. While the UPS web site will not normally associate a time of day with your delivery, you can at least know the day that your shipment will arrive. Because this tracking number is sent via e-mail, it may sometimes be considered junk mail or “spam” by some e-mail servers, so be sure and check your “spam mail” before calling us for a tracking number. If you do need to call us for your tracking number, be sure and have your 6-digit Water Value order number handy so that we may look you up right away. While we can locate order information by way of name and date, the order number system is much faster.