I am so sick of buying what I think is quality, only for it to be garbage

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Not quite ready for the pit…

The aerator for my kitchen faucet died last night (the plastic grommet holding the aerator screen in place cracked open). So, I swung by The Home Depot tonight on my way home to get a new one.

I stood before a quite varied selection ranging from somewhere around $3 up to around $12.

I decided on the water saving (1.5 gpm) twist type, where twisting it causes the water to mist/spray. I think I paid around $10, so it was on the higher end of the scale.

Wow, what a POS I just wasted my money on!

First, the threads are plastic, and very easy to strip if not careful.

Second, the whole body is plastic (well, duh!). I really thought it’d be chromed metal. Damn.

Third, it leaked right off. Not a bad leak, more like I turned the faucet on and a drip formed around the threads (and yes, I did tighten it more with no luck).

Fourth, and the worse part: the damn screw thing is terrible! The aerator is fully seated and gives a normal faucet flow. You are supposed to turn the lower body for the water stream to go to more of a mist/spray. Well, I turned the lower body, it did turn to a spray, but a nano-turn more and the damn lower body fell off!

So long story short, I bought a horribly made piece of trash (it is now resting quietly in my garbage can).

For the amount of times I will buy that item in my life, I’d gladly pay double or triple what I paid for that plastic POS if it was made well.

Anyone have similar stories?

2

Yeah, it seems ‘cheap’ is getting more and more expensive, these days.
It used to be that when you wanted better quality, you paid more.
Not so much, now.

I know the Keurig coffee makers aren’t worth it money-wise, at all.
Not that they don’t work well, when they work.
And if you avoid the k-cups altogether and use whatever the hell coffee you want in their 8 dollar basket that works with it, then it’d be borderline cost-effective…

…if they lasted longer than 2 years. Which apparantly they don’t.
So.

Yeah.

Also, those push-lights, that you stick on walls in closets or whatnot? I tried them for the first time last month 'cause they were not cheap, so I figured they would work.

I kid you not, one didn’t work at all, the other lasted a minute and then completely failed.

Utter garbage.

3

You didn’t buy quality though. You bought cheap and elected for more features. The quality products aisle at Home Depot is in some other universe.

4

I agree. I bought while driving home from my damn commute. I should have left early and went to the few local hardware stores that are left. But now I wonder how different they’d be (Ace pretty much took over everything here).

5

The Ace and True Values around here still carry the all metal versions of these things and most other plumbing fittings. I do understand the problem of buying after hours. The hardware stores all close very early.

6

You’re supposed to use the white plumbers tape around the threads to stop it from leaking. Spot on with the rest though - I’ve bought one like that with plastic threads and while plumbers tape makes it not leak, it eventually weakens to the point where it just pulls straight down & out. Lesson learned - metal threads. Keep that lesson in mind with the nuts holding your drain to the bottom of sinks too - plastic compression nuts on all plastic pipe ok, plastic nut->metal threads on bottom of sink, not ok.