Rant about Home Depot

[tornitore45]

If you need an Halloween skeleton Home Depot has it 50, days early.
If you want bottled water Home Depot has it, year round.
But, if you want a Socket Head Cap Screw 3/8"-16 3.5" Long (or any length), they only have it on line.

HD is black listed anyway, but being Sunday I was willing to spend $0.80 for one $0.22 bolt but no score.

[jcfx]

I feel your pain, been there done that and stormed out of HD too many times to count.

McMaster is my best friend now, they even have same day delivery if ordered early enough.
I can live with 100 count boxes of machine screws.

[John Hasler]

If you need an Halloween skeleton Home Depot has it 50, days early.
If you want bottled water Home Depot has it, year round.
But, if you want a Socket Head Cap Screw 3/8"-16 3.5" Long (or any length), they only have it on line.

HD is black listed anyway, but being Sunday I was willing to spend $0.80 for one $0.22 bolt but no score.

I checked at the coop convenience store in Elmwood (I went down to get a U-bolt for a project). They only have 3/8"-16 socket head cap screws up to 2".

[SteveHGraham]

In Miami, people open the fastener drawers, take fasteners out of the plastic packets, and put the packets back. I think I'm the only person who ever paid for a fastener. The employees don't sort the drawers. When I shopped there, I would take the misfiled packets and put them on top of the cabinet. I figured it was very considerate of me to help the employees find the fasteners that needed to be sorted.

[SteveM]

I had to buy socket head cap screws at HD a while back to mount a chuck.

When I couldn't find them, I figured I was just missing where they were, so I asked an employee for help, she told me "we don't carry specialized stuff like that". I told her that this was plain vanilla industry-standard stuff, not "specialty stuff".

The hardware store near where I work has a fastener aisle that has 4-5 times the assortment at HD. We also just got a Tractor Supply and a new Ace Hardware, so I have options.

Unless it's deck screws, large bolts, or zinc-plated machine screws from 6-32 to 1/4-20, I don't even go there.

Steve

[tornitore45]

We often travel to Attica NY where we have family (not in the prison). A rural community not yet spoiled by the big box store. The local ACE hardware have just about everything an hardware store should have and Tractor Supply add a lot of the specialized farm accessories.
Where I live, in Austin, Tractor Supply is quite far but we have a "just fasteners" store that has a great assortment and sells one piece at the 100 piece price, often 1/10 of what HD charges. Since this store has been purchased by Fastserve inventory has gone down and prices up but I still work the 24 miles round trip into my schedule rather than patronizing HD. I like Lowe's a tiny bit better than HD.

[SteveM]

Locally, we have the Nutty Company.
https://www.nutty.com/

For years, they survived a block away from Home Depot. They moved to a larger store.

You can mail order from them.

Steve

[Harold_V]

My experiences with HD have been pretty good. When it was time to run the wires from the electric meter (which is mounted on my shop) to the house panel, copper was going crazy with price. I had been quoted as much as $5/foot for some 3/0 and I needed about 250'. I checked with HD and bought it for $1.79/foot. They had not yet reacted to the constantly increasing prices. Made them look pretty good in my eyes!

We don't have many options for buying things where we live, so I was happy to see them open this store (in Chehalis), which is about 25 miles distant. Previously we had to travel about 50 miles.

H

[liveaboard]

Just after this rant about HD was posted, the forum went off line for a day or two.
Coincidence?

Be happy, when I want socket head screws there is only one walk-in shop within 200 miles, and they charge $ per screw.
They know we can't get them anywhere else.

As far as I know, there are no mail order sources in Portugal for them either. I can only order from other [EU] countries, which incurs high costs and time lag.

[johnfreese]

You guys should know better than to expect to find socket head screws at the big box stores. What little they carry is likely out od stock or misplaced by other customers and is grossly overpriced. You also have no idea whether or not they are "counterfeit" fasteners. I imagine Hillman buys fasteners in bulk wherever is cheapest and repackages them.

Thank God for McMaster-Carr and Fastenal.

[ctwo]

I wanted some bailing wire. How simple is that? I asked so many reps there and none of them had a clue what bailing wire is or galvanized steel wire, or aluminum wire, or electric fence wire, or picture hanging wire. Clueless, all of them. And they do not carry that kind of wire.

Then I made the mistake of emailing their customer care. My reward seems to be a sudden placement on dozens of subscription email spamers. I mean like newsletters and rags of legitimate places.

[tornitore45]

Update: I said I was going to pay $0.8 for a $0.22 bolt. Those where figures out of my derrier.
Checked at Lowe's, the longest 3/8" was 2" and priced a $2.00.
What I ended up paying at the Fastserve place was $0.74 for the 3.5" long, as I said they raised prices after the acquisition but still fair.