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Home Depot hell April 19, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Home wreckers , trackback

As you may have noticed, I love working on our house. We actually have several projects set up this year. Our latest has been the master bath (which is very small). Toilets are our specialty, leading to many colorful phrases in our home.

We recently had the floor re tiled. Dr. Jay and I decided to be environmentally friendly and switch out to a 1.6Gal flush toilet. We researched and bought a K0hler from Lowes. Dr. Jay went to set it up. All looked great. Then he turns on the water and water poured out onto the floor. He undid everything and put the tank (which was factory sealed) onto the sink. Filled the tank and the water leaked right out of the seal. He was pissed to say the least.

We mentioned this to our tile guy. He immediately told us of the industry secret. Home Depot and Lowes have deals with many large manufacturers. K0hler, D3lta, and M0en and many many other companies produce a lower quality product for them, but sell them under the same name. For example, the toilet we bought was most likely made at a plant the produces lower quality goods, so Home Depot and Lowes can sell them at a nice profit.

The more I looked into this, the more I heard from other people that they had the same experience. Tools are the same way. D3Walt tools are not the same at Home Depot. If you buy one and it breaks, D3Walt will not fix it. You have to take it to Home Depot.

I was saddened by this. We had originally bought our tiles at Home Depot. But our tile guy suggested a different place. We looked and bought at the other place. The tiles at the other place were more expensive and CLEARLY better made. They were thicker, more uniformly glazed.

So buyer beware. We have decided that we will no longer buy "big" items from the box stores. We can do better going to our local place, that is pricier, but get better quality.

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