Harvest Right Medium Pharmaceutical Freeze Dryer

Purchased a large dry freezer 12/20/2018, received our unit on 01/20/2019.Ran our first cycle and the unit began smoking, after calling tech support they figured out the wiring to the heating element burned up.After investing $5,000 on this brand new machine, we were now waiting for Harvest Right to send us new wiring, so that my husband could spend his time repairing the defective wiring.The new wiring again, burned up.We then had to wait for for an additional entire heating element wiring and hope we would not have the same issue.We ran the unit for the second time now, no success.It’s now April and we have requested to exchange this defective unit for a new unit that we were comfortable with not having any issues.Although it was not easy we packaged up the unit and arranged for it to be picked up and sent back to Harvest Right.Two weeks go by and there has been no contact from Harvest Right.I call them to confirm that they received the dry freezer and to get shipping info for the new one, they confirm receipt and tell me that they have now “fixed” the one we sent back, I told them that was fine but we want a new one.It’s been 4 months of nothing but a nightmare!ZERO communication on their part and total inconvenience to us.We spent $5,000.00 on a brand new piece of equipment, that we have turned on TWO times and both times it broke.We have had to attempt repairs ourselves and deal with shipping back.Today we heard from our post office box (our mailing address, NOT a freight delivery address) that Harvest Right dropped off a large freight in the back of their store.Without ANY communication, Harvest Right sent the defective unit back to us, to a post office box in a strip mall, it is currently sitting outside in a parking lot and it’s supposed to rain for the next 3 days.I could not have been a more patient, understanding customer, completely cooperative and they could not have been less responsive or helpful.We sit here out $5,000 and NOTHING to show for it.

I love the freeze dryer. It works exactly how I imagined it would. I purchased the Medium Harvest Wright freeze dryer. I have not had any issues with it. The reason I will not give it 5 stars is because it took 10 weeks to arrive and when it arrived, I was shocked to see it was white considering I ordered a black one. I decided to keep it as I didn't want to wait another 10 weeks for a new one. I received it in March 2021 and I have used it almost everyday for the past 2 months with no issues.Also pro tip: If you can afford it buy the upgraded vacuum pump. It is much more low maintenance. Changing the oil in the pump ever few batches is not for me.

Everything was awesome until the freeze dryer stopped working and had to deal with the Harvest Right support (my honeymoon with the product lasted only two weeks). I had to talk with 3 people with no technical knowledge just to open a ticket. A week later I received a brief call from Cody (I believe he is the only technician in this company; other “technicians” might only answer very basic questions; according to him my issue is common). On next day he was on vacation and no one wanted to help with my issue. Meanwhile I’ve decided to find out why one of my orders had not been shipped yet. I called sales and they hang up on me 4 times. It’s ridicules. To put it mildly they don’t like customers. They will hang up on you if your phone call doesn’t bring a commission to a salesperson. I’m fine with fixing all appliances myself, but probably what you don’t know that according to the warranty it’s owner responsibility to pay for shipping the freeze dryer to Utah and back (very expensive) OR pay your local technician (good luck finding qualified technician in your area). Don’t except any help from this company, you are on your own

These units have a 50/50 chance of being defective from factory or breaking on you in the first year. Good luck with their customer service. They now charge $45 to diagnose a problem with their unit. I have over 10 units and half are down at any given time. Best advice is go with a different brand. I know freeze driers are somewhat limited but i sure can’t wait for a company that actually cares about the product they are selling you to come into the space. Won’t take long to put these guys out of biz