I stopped by Home Depot last night to get some drywall and I got to wondering what’s the largest structure that you could build with all of the raw materials inside of a Home Depot. That’s a bit silly becuase your house would end up with 30 bathrooms in it, so then I started to wonder is there enough material inside a Home Depot to build another full Home Depot store?
It’s slightly zen and no, I wasn’t high. I’m just curious.
If you did, how would you fully stock the new building? 
I expect that cement, sand and gravel, for the concrete floor, would be the limiting factor.
The ones I’ve seen don’t stock enough bricks or blocks to build anything as big as one of their stores, and I’m pretty sure they don’t stock enough electrical wire, either.
Every Home Depot I’ve been in was built out of steel, concrete, and concrete block. I don’t think they sell any steel beams and, as was already noted, they don’t have enough bags of concrete in stock to create a big enough slab to build it on. So, no, you couldn’t create a Home Depot store of the same construction as the store you’re taking the materials from.
I doubt you could even create a structurally-sound, similarly-sized structure with the amount of wood and plywood the typical Home Depot stocks. And if you could, there would be so many posts holding up the roof that nobody would be able to move around inside it (assuming a flat roof, like every Home Depot I’ve seen).
No, you couldn’t. Even if you special ordered all the concrete so you’d have enough. They don’t sell the steel beams that hold the roof up, or the steel girders or really any structural steel. I doubt you could even special order that.
ME: I’d like to order some girders.
HD: Okay, how long should they be
ME: (Points up) Umm about that long
HD: Okay, how many do you need
ME: (Counts) 257, and could you paint them orange*
Alternate Ending
ME: (Counts) 257 and you could paint them blue, I’m building a Lowes.
Well you can, just not from Home Depot.
Alright, fair enough. Is there enough inventory inside of a Home Depot (or Lowes or any of the other mega building supply stores) to build a structure that’s bigger than the store that sells the stuff?
My friends and I invented an abbreviation years ago, “yff”.
It stands for “you funny fucker”.
They don’t sell the items (or enough of the items) used to build the shell of the building.
Concrete Floors
Concrete Block Bearing walls
Steel beam Support Columns
Steel ceiling trusses
Corrugated metal roof
Electric sliding doors
Rolls of vinyl roofing material
And even if the existing HD had all the materials in stock to build another HD, the resulting HD’s inventory would be sorely depleted in those areas. So you couldn’t build a fully stocked HD from an existing HD.
“Or maybe you don’t care.” -R. Benchley
You’re thinking of Von Neumann’s Depot.
Tris
Clean up!
That part I gathered, but I just somehow like the idea of stores with the ability to self propagate.
Well played sir.
In addition to the structural materials needed for the shell, I don’t believe they stock the necessary mechanical components for a commercial building of that size. HVAC, electrical, etc.
Not to mention finish elements such as signage, or shopping carts.
Does the structure just have to be a shell made out of anything from Home Depot? Or are you expecting it to function (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc.)? Because you could probably build a huge shell out of all kinds of stuff. Does it have to stand up to strong wind and weather?
Not sure if I’m being wooshed or not, but that’s the point of the OP, can you buy everything from Home Depot.
Largest functional structure.
What if the function is ART. Would that count? 