A customer hired me to rehab a half bath and elected to provide their own fixtures, which she purchased from the local dispenser of lowest common denominator goods. I warned her ahead of time that I would warrant my workmanship only-any product problem was her issue.
Taking the toilet bowl out of the box, it didn’t look right. The trapway was cocked to the left by 10 degrees. It didn’t sit flat on the floor, although the floor was dead good in both directions by a 4 foot level. With shimming, it was stabilized, and the tank was installed. After it was fed water, what did I hear? A steady trickle of water from the tank to the bowl, because either there’s a crack in the overflow tube, or the flush valve is faulty.
Next was the ped lav. A rough setup of the components made me reach for the level once again. As manufactured, the two would have delivered a 3/8" in 2 foot horizontal left-right error, and a 3/16" in 2 foot front-rear error. I shimmed it as best I could, bolted the basin to the wall, and shook my head.
The whole thing reminded me of a line from the movie/novel “Christine” in which Will Darnell opines, “You can’t polish a turd.”
Home Depot, Lowes and the like are the Seven-Elevens of building supplies. Sure, you can buy groceries at a Seven-Eleven, but you aren’t going to cook a gourmet dinner with dollar hotdogs, a can of beanie-weenies and a couple of bananas.
But you’re still the one who installed it. Would you care to say how the customer felt after it was all over?
I agree that HD and Lowe’s are the big boxes/7-11s of construction, but don’t they pretty much sell the same products that are available at more expensive supply stores-with respect to stuff like toilets and such? If you buy an American Standard toilet from HD, it’s the same as the one you get for 40% more, isn’t it?
There’s the fallacy. The products made for sale by the big boxes aren’t manufactured to the same standards as those sold by plumbing supply outlets. An American Standard Plebe from Home Despot isn’t the same Plebe I buy from a wholesale plumbing supplier. Little things like fully glazed trapways, better quality finish on the china. That’s why I’ll warrant product and labor if If I supply material, but warrant labor only if product is customer furnished.
I believe that’s true GaWd. Though I don’t deal with purchases for either company.
This reminds me of a situation I was in a few years back with a car. I had a '50 Plymouth that was sanded, primed and ready to paint. The only problem was the right quarter panel had a small rust hole in it. I couldn’t locate a replacement, so I figured I’d have it painted and replace the body part later.
I took it to a shop in town that specializes in paint jobs for collector and custom cars. Without the new panel (I wanted the new part, not a repair) they wouldn’t touch it. The reason being that once I left the shop, the look of the car was a reflection on his shop. If I neglected the part and let the rust spread it looks bad on him.
The only person anybody remembers/blames is the guy that did the assembly/finishing. Nobody thinks that the parts were defective to begin with. I can see your reluctance to do the goob to begin with.
It’s not exactly the same situation, but one summer when I was in college, I worked in a factory that produced air filters and related products. We would slap different “brand” labels on them depending on where they were going, and we knew that for a few stores, the quality standards were higher than others and so less quality deviance was allowed. (And for some, they only or also had to look better superficially, like straighter unattached labels inserted under shrink wrap, etc.)
Not at all, surely? You pay for something to do a job at least at a threshold level (drawers do job and hold under reasonable strain). If it doesn’t fulfil even a basic level of function then you have rights for a replacement.
I’m very skeptical of that claim. I don’t think that lawmakers, plumbing supply houses, or the manufacturers themselves would tolerate an identically labeled product to be manufactured at different specs and sold through different outlets to the unwary public. That is wrong in so many ways.
While it’s true that, in general, you get what you pay for, it’s not uncommon to pay a premium for a top flight product that turns out to be a lemon, nor is it uncommon to buy something a the bargain discount basement that serves you well for many years.
My wife and I went through this when we first married. We wanted ceiling fans throughout the house, and she insisted on the pricy models, while I went for the Home Depot deals. We ended up buying some from HD and others from the specialty store. Fifteen years later each fan is still working fine and looking fine. The only difference is that some cost us twice as much as others.
This touches upon a question i’ve always had about H-D: basically, they take EVERYTHING back! Have you blown your lawnmower engine (by not putting oil in the crankcase?)-if you are willing to stand in line 9and have your receipt) you get a full refund! If you plant dies (because you overfertilized t, same thing)! Which leads to my question: H-D (and the other big-box places) work on percentages…that is, they fully expect to take back 1-2% of what they sell. So, they tell their suppliers: “Ship us EVERYTHING!-Sweep the factory floor up and ship everything you find…and if something comes back (i.e. is defective) we’ll send it back to you.”
So as long as the return rate is acceptable, H-D gets rich. The other thing that leads me to this belief: H-D uses inexperienced workers (forklift operators, etc.) who routinely DAMAGE stuff left and right! I’ve seen broken boxes, half-dead plants, ripped fertilizer bags, etc., they don’t seem to care!
Again, as long as their store managers make their numbers 9and returns don’t rise above 1-2%) they are happy!
Does H-D sell low quality stuff? I’d say thay sell everything-its all about volume.
In principle, you’re absolutely correct, Martiju. Unfortunatley when you’ve gone through the trouble of installing it, and installing a sink basin on top of it and all the accompanying pipe connections and caulking, etc., the idea of undoing and redoing all of that isn’t exactly a welcoming thought. Fixing the drawers is a lot easier and serves as a good reminder to be a lot more careful in future selections. I bought cheap and I got cheap.
From a purely anecdotal perspective, I agree that there is a difference in quality in what you find in the “Big Box” stores and what you find in a more specialized environment. When my daughters were little, I left my “day job” and worked a few nights a week at WalMart. It was really educational to see what products consistently ended up in the “Return to Vendor” pile in the backroom. The bulk of the items were from electronics, name brand tv’s, stereos, etc. and name brand power tools and small appliances, as well. This was nearly ten years ago, so I don’t remember what brands, but I seem to recall RCA Tv’s being in the pile consistently and Black and Decker products. Oh, the phones, there were always tons of South Bell phones in the pile. I remember thinking that they must sell either factory seconds or cheaper versions to WalMart. (Or in some cases, the brands just weren’t very good to begin with.)
H-D can bite me! Every time I hear that stupid “you can do it, we can help” commercial I want to set something on fire. It is so sad that a novice knows more than the majority of your employees - no matter what department I went into!
They sure were going up all over the place in Central Florida when I was there - along with CVS and Walgreens.
I’ve read a lot of unflattering articles about how Wal-Mart holds down prices, but I’ve never seen the claim that they coerce their manufacturers to produce a poorer version of an existing product line for only them.
**danceswithcats ** and Scarlett67, your claim may be true but I, for one, am going to need a cite.