Home Depot vs Lowes

[somethingsketchy]

I haven't done business with HD after they screwed up an order (for my parents) on a couple of doors that we wanted. After three weeks of running back and forth, my parents finally canceled the order. We ended up going to the local hardware shop (for an extra 30% in price) and got the doors through them.

Personally I haven't dealt with Lowes, but my relatives swear by them. Good customer service, and they almost always send a guy or two to help load materials into the truck. Can't ask for better customer service than that.

 

[Train]

Lowes gives 10% off any purchase with Military ID, saved me a BOATLOAD after buying my house.

Only wish I had known about it sooner.

 

[Thump553]

You really can't go wrong with Behr's paint, cheap and VG. I just saw a Consumer Reports summary in the newspaper yesterday that gave Behr's Best Buy rating for exterior and exterior trim (was #2 in exterior at $19 gallon, winner was $35 gallon, and was #1 in exterior trim (semi-gloss)).

Lowe's seems to have consistently lower prices and better selection in my area.

About a decade ago I was remodeling our kitchen and had a formica countertop made at HD. Being the idiot I am I ended up cutting the sink hole on the wrong end. Went back to HD to order another countertop and while the guy was writing it up I confessed what I did. He said how about we knock 40% of the replacement off then, made me a fan for life.

 

[dank69]

FWIW when I bought my house one of the BR was painted a god awful bright orange. When we repainted it, after 2 coats of Kilz primer the orange was still showing through a little. One coat of off-white Valspar and the room looks great. I had a little Valspar left over so for hahas I painted the closet which I had not primed and was the same bright orange. One coat of Valspar off white and you cannot see the orange at all. Totally wasted my money on the primer.

 

[PricklyPete]

lowes has better sales, home depot has a better selection.

Interesting, I've always found the selection at Lowes often better...although I imagine that depends on what you are looking for. Overall I hate both of them as they severly limit our options. They basically sell a limited selection of the same shit.

 

[Onita]

Lowes over HD. HD around here is so organized. Also, Lowes is 10 minutes closer and not at the mall (so no traffic). Paint, I prefer Benjamin Moore.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Store dependent for me. Some Lowes are better than Home Depot and some Home Depots are better Lowes.

 

[OutHouse]

HD is my last resort. Lowes is an extra 20 minutes away, but given a choice, I'll do business there. Even for things that I figured would be routine - run into HD and be out in 5 minutes - have often wasted an hour of my time.

Special ordered metal roofing (ironically cheaper than in stock) - 3 hours in the store waiting for someone to get my order so I could load it (after they had called me at home telling me it was in.) Then, they said "sorry, come back tomorrow" and closed for the night. A couple more hours the next day before I insisted to the manager that I tag along while he looked, because everyone else had a habit of disappearing, never to be heard from again when they were sent after my order. Found my order - put in stock & gouged to hell. AND they couldn't find the matching color screws that I had special ordered. THEN it started pouring rain - I'd have been done installing it by that point, but lost that weekend because of the change in weather & couldn't do the job for a couple more weekends.

Went there to get some 3/4" plywood. Thanks to 50 bazillion carts in the aisle, it was hard to maneuver the plywood onto a cart - couldn't do it myself & needed my wife at the other end. Not one, but THREE employees walked right past & ignored us when we asked if they could give us a hand loading a couple pieces.

Needed a bundle of 2x6's cut open (metal straps) - asked the girl at the pro desk about 15 feet away, and she called someone. 10 minutes later, she hadn't figured out that no one had come yet. I gave up on waiting & went to their tool section for something to use to cut the bundle myself. When I handed the tool to her and said "here, next time you'll have a tool to cut open the straps yourself, since no one came." "No one helped you?" "You've been standing there 15 feet away. Did you just think I was loitering for no reason??"

Needed a weird plumbing solution (hooking up a pressure regulator to a rocket launcher) - their expert said it was impossible. Local hardware store guy figured it out in 10 seconds.

Constantly need something that's not stocked on the shelf where it says it is - they just open boxes and stick them wherever they want. Not much of a problem until there's something in particular that you need. "Do you have *this*?" "Hmmm, computer says we have 48 in stock, I'll have someone get find them for you." 20 minutes later...

Spoke to the manager a couple times about things like this - "yeah, we have some pretty lazy people." Yet, he's done nothing to correct the problem.

Every location I've gone to Lowes at, people have been friendly, and more importantly, helpful.

ive had similar issues with HD. it was with keying new locks and deadbolts to one key. bought them on Friday afternoon and just left them with the key/hardware chick and told i her to call me when they were done. She calls me at 7pm when they were closing letting me know they were all keyed and ready for pick up at customer service counter. i pick them up sat morning. drive home which is 20 miles and find out that NONE of the new locks and deadbolts had been keyed. WTF! dive back and raise hell. of course nobody is working that day knows how to key a lock so the manager said he would do it later that afternoon. get a call from him saying they were done drive back and pick them up at customer service, this time i was thinking and tested the locks. 2 of the deadbolts were not changed!!! WTF again!!! Had the CSR page the manager and of course he is gone for the day. Now i am pissed. I told the manager on duty what the problem was and he was pretty blasie about it, so i took the two deadbolts across the street to Lowes and they changed them in 15 minutes at no charge after i told them what the morons at HD did.

 

[Squisher]

Paint, I prefer Benjamin Moore.

I do too, my favorite paint by far, however as of this year they have priced themselves right out of my ball park. I've switched over to Behr. I called up Behr and had them send me a book/pack of all their paint colors (I just told them I was a contractor). It's kinda cool to have all the colors right at hand so the wife can walk around and match stuff.


BTW-I never expect much as far a customer service from either Lowes or HD.

 

[edro]

Lowes is .5mi closer to me, so I usually go there first.
I have no overall preference other than Lowes' blue is more appealing than HD's orange.

 

[jaedaliu]

lowe's is more helpful, but if you know what you are doing home depot has better selection, prices, and hot chicks working.

!!!!

where's your home depot? the ones I go to have old men with big bellies.