What Do You Hate About Lowes Or HD??

KillerToiletSpider

I really can't understand why contractors are helping to fund their competition.

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Bone Saw

i can appreciate that, and do the same from time to time, I have a small scope of consumable items and small cogs items that it is just plain more profitable and less of a headache to get there than to stock it in bulk or get from supplier. but doing major takeoffs there is just insane. When i do this I find going late at night the night before works best, (usually a sunday night) noone there, in and out, and no bs the next am

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Custom Decks & Carpentry LLC.
Chester County Custom Decks
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Bone Saw

got something to say steve, than Fking say it, or should i?

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Custom Decks & Carpentry LLC.
Chester County Custom Decks
Custom Deckbuilder Mainline
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neolitic

When he was 8 mine asked...
"Did the movies have sound when you were a kid?"

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Mike Finley

Sure, no reputable deck builder doing any kind of decent volume would be crazy enough to be pulling lumber off of Home Depot's shelves, hell you would be cleaning them out of inventory anyways wouldn't you?

Relationships with our vendors is what it's all about anyways. When the sh*t hits the fan and I need a favor I ain't gonna be looking for somebody at Home Depot to be helping me out of a jam that's for sure.

My garage is starting to look like Home Depot anyways. I've been buying certain things by the pallet already. Can't wait to get to the point of having my own warehouse, that will be sweet and really make all the difference. Truth be known, I'm heading over to Home Depot right now, gotta go wrestle with 5 toilets with my name on them.

kevjob

not me anymore, today I drove 5 miles out of my to go my lumber yard


FCK HOME CREEPO AND BLOWES.

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Kevin
Basement Finishing Highlands Ranch Colorado
Littleton Colorado, Basement Remodeling
Kitchen Remodeling Denver

silvertree

I just opened an account with Fergusans, have a dealer account for cabinets and use the lumber yard for doors and windows and lumber. Trim I get from a specialty lumber company. Never been to Lowes, I go to HD if they are close by. But I never forget they are my competitor and that they would like guys like us to work for them.

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Vote for Pedro
Kitchen, bath, St Paul remodeling
Minneapolis Remodel Blog
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fredIII

i ordered 5/4 pt for a porch job to be delivered, the crap they dropped must have been the picked threw ****, i ended up taking back half of it, i was pissed. after i returned it i picked out about 50 boards, tossing out maybe 3-4 as i was wheeling it to the register a employee was wheeling back the load i returned, he said looks like i could have saved you a trip loading your cart , i replied thats the crap i just returned !!! i went to the contractors desk where a couple days before the manager had said to me lets us pick your order and deliver it , it'll save you time & money. well i let him have it, he gave me a 10% discount and refunded the delivery charge but never again , i'll pick my own lumber if i go to lowes or home depot !!! when i say bad i mean bad, twisted, warped, split, gourged, big knot holes, i mean crap, dumster bound in my book.

Tom F.

I am a Bona Fide Mother Fg Expert on Blowes and HD. I can rate every one of their stores in Western NC, SW VA, and East TN. For both lack of helpful or knowlegable employees, and for just how often they can completely up the simplest task. The secret to surviving at either place is to go in the door assuming that you will do 100% of your business without getting help from anyone.

I love how they stock the heaviest stuff at the absolute back of the store. And I love how every few months they have a shift in focus from the DIY customer, and promise that they "really want to cultivate the relationships with their contractor customers!" That usually lasts about 2 months, then its back to business as usual.

I love to get the kids there all worked up. One time I found a fork lift with the key in the ignition, and proceeded to move a big stack of sheetrock over to my truck bed. The little weekend manager guy came unglued. He sure as heck wasn't going to help me load it! I like to take my children in with me. Its a great place for them to unwind after being in school all day. I also enjoy using their rolling ladders to climb way up high. I have learned that if I don't yell or swear at them, they are forced to back off.

Like everybody else, I shop elsewhere for 90%. But sometimes they are the only option if you are going to make progress. You just grin and bear it. At least they don't have stools at the contractor desk, on the customer side. I won't shop anyplace that has stools. The only places that should have stools next to a counter should also provide light snacks to go with my drink.

Celtic

Isn't that about the typical lifespan of a DIY-gone-"Pro"?

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Tscarborough

I won't say blue or orange, but this happened last month:

A customer is buying custom CMU from me, 80,000+ total. Customer mis-orders, needs 10,000 more special order units. Customer does not like 8 week lead time for custom order units. Customer asks Big Box (BB) if they can supply the block.

BB Bimbo calls us for block price, but doesn't know enough to ask for price correctly, i.e. asks for regular units, meaning gray lightweight units, when she wanted colored units. She quotes customer price, takes his money, and sends a P.O. to us with correct description, wrong price. OOPS! Many levels of their corpoerate structure later, we have a P.O. for the correct (our) price, and they lose 15 cents per block.

So, 5 weeks later (we pushed it), our trucks deliver to our customer on his jobsite. He was surprised to say the least. It turns out that the BB Bimo lied and said she had found the CMU already made in Dallas, then just stalled him for the five weeks, aggravating the crap out of us every day about where the block was("look at your contract" is what I told her when I still took her calls).

On the day of the last delivery, I visited the jobsite and talked to our customer about the situation. He is not a fan of the Big Box, to put it mildly.

I love Home Depot and Lowes!

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Michaeljp86

This one time we needed some concrete block, get up to the block and this en er parked his toyota corrola with his ugly wife in it right in front of the block. I seen the en er inside at the project counter acting like god. I wanted to drag a couple block across the hood of his car. If I wasnt there with my dad I would have went inside I made sure eveyone seen me ask this guy get his damn car out of the contractor pickup and park in the freaken parking lot. But instead I had to carry 40 blocks around his car.

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neolitic

Have hated Blowes for 38 years now.
Back then they had a door shop in the yard,
several "features" that made them "appear"
to be a lumber yard.
Found out right away that they couldn't
even come close to doing a take-off.
Then that, even with my lumber list
they would still convert everything but
pre-cut studs to lf, and send whatever lengths
they pleased. Making joist and rafters a real joke.
"Our computer system will save you time and money!!!"
Yeah, right, 34 yrs I'm still waiting for that one to happen.
(They were the first building supply of any kind,
where I saw a computer system, and they still haven't got it figured out.)
Any way I haven't considered them any thing but
a poorly stocked, over-sized, under-serviced,
second string hardware store since before
some of you guys were born!
Later I'll let you know how I really feel about
them and the goat they rode in on!
But they are miles above
the level of esteem in which I hold the freaking Despot!
Geeze, I'm too spent to start on them.

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bujaly

I forgot about this story.. This one just proves what kind of idiots are working there..
I'm tiling a counter-top and I need some plywood cut down. SOOOO, I go to one of the "idiots" working in the lumber "area". I tell him my measurements and he's like,"Alright, I gotch U sun!", black guy, but I see him ALL the time, SO I figured he was well versed with all that had to do with the lumber area... So he cuts the ply and I say." Hold on man, I have had a couple of idiots (I actually said, IDIOTS) cut the wood an inch short or long, so just let me double check. WOW!! Whaddya know, it was an inch shorter than what I told him.. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA...LOL!!
WOW!!! How do you comfort an idiot like that after i just said some idiots have mis-cut by an inch and HE DID!!!

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Michaeljp86

One time they ran out of 3/4 plywood on the bottom but had some uptop. A guy come walking buy and I said can you get a forklift and get that down. Well it turns out there is only one guy on each shift who is "licensed" to operate a forklift. And as you can imagine Mr. Imalicensedforliftdriver thinks hes top gun and takes his sweet time getting there.

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I am just a vessel from which genius flows -Homer Simpson

Global warming is a myth, like evolution and the metric system.

trptman

If you want some basic stuff, know exactly what you want, and can find it yourself, then those places are ok.
If you need help finding something, want something the least bit out of the ordinary, or heaven forbid want someone to bounce an idea off of concerning the best way to tackle something-stay the heck away from those places.

SelfContract

Things I hate about HD:

- Always speaker loud mouth about HD credit card, 10% off, and no financing, etc., anytime I walk in store.

- Messy items in the plumbing dept. Small items like copper, PVC connectors, etc. are mixed up everywhere for years. Nobody care to organize, customers must have patience to shift through every little cardboard box/drawers, to look for what they want. So don't bother to ask for help. They're not there and you must go look for them smoking first.

_ HD employees are not technical knowledgeable at all, mostly are students working in summer break or people who just got laid off and need temp work before quit HD again. Can't answer most questions straight.

- Too many beepers & black-ball camera installed above ceilings for catching thieves. But when you just bought/paid for item, beepers still sound after you walk out with cleared/scanned item, then cashier said just "ignoring" the beep sounds, weirdo!!.... So walk in & out store will cause door beepers to beep with scare tactics. Too many items left by doors unorganized and outside so tempting for theft.

EricTheHandyman

I was installing a vanity and needed some 1.5" ABS fittings to relocate the drain, no problem, Depot is right down the street. After searching and finding 2", 3", and 4" ABS fittings, I'm scratching my head when a bozo in orange walks up to me and asks what the weather is like, it's time for his smoke break and he needs to know whether or not to get his coat. I ask where the 1.5 ABS is, he points up at the ceiling and walks away. After climbing the ladder and finally finding what I need in the stratosphere, I go to checkout. Of course, only 1 checkout open, and a non-English speaking person trying to buy a cartload of stuff, with 3 employees taking forever to do it. FInally head to the self checkout, every item I scan sets off some alarm thing because they are not the proper weight that is programmed in, finally I get furious, leave my pile of fittings on the beeping counter and storm out, and the lady who is monitoring the self checkout says, "have a nice day!" Un- believable. I ended up driving 25 minutes to a hardware store to get $3 worth of fittings.

Joe Carola

All you guys complaining about HD and Loews sound like a bunch of old ladies. You guys keep pissing in the wind and keep pissing in the wind. Do you like pissing in the wind?

You don't like it,
DON'T SHOP THERE!!!

If you have no choice, shop there. Do you guys just like to complain?

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Joe Carola

SelfContract

Yes Papa!!.. we'll obey & remember.... just a bad experience no need to get upset