OK, OK, I give, Home Depot is lousy

[Chuck52]

I don't buy wire enough to be "tricked", but it did take me forever to figure out my 5lb bag of sugar wasn't.

Chuck

 

[slowrev]

I have heard that both the housing boom and the war are mostly responsible for the rise in copper prices.
Copper is used in brass shell casings....
And in the reconstruction effort too I suppose.

 

[scott_vt]

Afternoon RaT,
I assume that most of what your original post was about, was the lack of help at HD. And your second dissatisfaction was with the high prices of wire.

I have found for the most part that the help is almost nonexistent in those type of stores Occassionally I am pleasently surprised when I really need help, and I find a very competent individual A few months back I redid some of the hardwood floors in our home and the guy in the rental department of HD was a saviour ! He gave great instructions and I got everything I needed on the first trip without having to make a bunch of unecessary trips ! I think its the luck of the draw

 

[Jagmandave]

I agree, visit your local electical wholsaler, he'll have everything you need at competent proces and people that know what the heck you're talking about. Same with plumbing supplies, go to the local wholesale supplier............

 

[BTDT]

All prices are up. Not just copper.

I rarely buy any electrical supplies at HD or Lowes. I usually go to the local electrical contractors supply store in my area called Tri-State Electric. They alway's have what I need, alway's know what I'm talking about(when you neet that widget that connects to the gizmo that plugs into the whatchamacalit) and are alway's more than happy to help you.

Kind of like lumber. When I need lumber I go to the local saw mill and get exactly what I want unlike getting what you can at the big box stores.

Exactly!! Get what you like, like what you get.

 

[_RaT_]

Afternoon RaT,
I assume that most of what your original post was about, was the lack of help at HD. And your second dissatisfaction was with the high prices of wire.

I have found for the most part that the help is almost nonexistent in those type of stores Occassionally I am pleasently surprised when I really need help, and I find a very competent individual A few months back I redid some of the hardwood floors in our home and the guy in the rental department of HD was a saviour ! He gave great instructions and I got everything I needed on the first trip without having to make a bunch of unecessary trips ! I think its the luck of the draw

I made a quick trip to yet another HD this morning to get 500' of #4 THHN CU and not only got it for the price Lowes had, but another 10% off. I normally do go to my electrical supply house, but the long trip for just 500' of #4 and 500' of #8 was simply not worht it. By the way, you can get romex #12 and #14 in 25', 50', 100' and 250' packages at my local Home Depots. Also, I remember reading that a large source of our copper comes from South American mines and that there have been shortages coming out of those countires which has been a major contributor to the higher then normal prices.

 

[Gatorboy]

Your analogy is similar to saying:

I once flew into SF and had to drive to Oakland. The traffic was bumper to bumper all the way. Boy, California is lousy.

 

[hilld]

It it an OSHA thing for lifting heavy items(not price related). I noticed dog food doesn't come in 50lb bags like it used to either.

I have noticed what you are saying though. Look at vending machines... Remeber when candy bars used to big bigger for a given price?

I don't buy the OSHA argument at all, cement is still sold in 80lb bags (used to be 90). Ice Cream is now sold in 1.75qt containers, used to be 1/2gallon. What the manafactures are trying to do is working, they sell you a product that you as the consumer think is still the same product for the same price, but really is a smaller product for the old price. They couldn't get people to pay an increased price or they would be buying the competitors product.

Back to the ice cream example. Dryers was one of the first companies to decrease the size of their container from 2qts to 1.85qts, after other companies followed suit, the reduced their container size to the current 1.75qts. The package is still the same height, so it doesn't look smaller in the freezer next to the others, however, the cylinder is a smaller diameter. Guess who gets screwed, the consumer. The container used to be known as a half gallon container, people still call it that, but it isn't anymore.

The same thing has been done to us with lumber and many other items. Many states are starting to reverse that, in the nursery business, plants were sold in gallon sizes as of a couple years ago, many states require that something sold as a 3 gallon plant, must actually have a 3 gallon container, not a 2.5.

Who knows where this is going and I am getting off my soap box now.

/rant

Derek

 

[_RaT_]

Your analogy is similar to saying:

I once flew into SF and had to drive to Oakland. The traffic was bumper to bumper all the way. Boy, California is lousy.

Your right, I am condeming the entire chain for what was 3 HD's in my area that all had no personel at or anywhere near the wire aisle. When I tried to track one down, it became apparent that the folks I talked to were not really all that interested to se to it that the person in charge of the wire aisle would get over to the wire rack anytime soon. I have two HD's on each side of the freeway and one is next door to a Lowes. It can be helpful when price shopping.

PS, every big city I go to has bumper to stinkin bumper traffic anymore. Seattle being just about the worst.

 

[_RaT_]

I don't buy the OSHA argument at all, cement is still sold in 80lb bags (used to be 90). Ice Cream is now sold in 1.75qt containers, used to be 1/2gallon. What the manafactures are trying to do is working, they sell you a product that you as the consumer think is still the same product for the same price, but really is a smaller product for the old price. They couldn't get people to pay an increased price or they would be buying the competitors product.

Back to the ice cream example. Dryers was one of the first companies to decrease the size of their container from 2qts to 1.85qts, after other companies followed suit, the reduced their container size to the current 1.75qts. The package is still the same height, so it doesn't look smaller in the freezer next to the others, however, the cylinder is a smaller diameter. Guess who gets screwed, the consumer. The container used to be known as a half gallon container, people still call it that, but it isn't anymore.

The same thing has been done to us with lumber and many other items. Many states are starting to reverse that, in the nursery business, plants were sold in gallon sizes as of a couple years ago, many states require that something sold as a 3 gallon plant, must actually have a 3 gallon container, not a 2.5.

Who knows where this is going and I am getting off my soap box now.

/rant

Derek

Maybe with the food products, they went to a metric measurement first and still slap the old standard numbers on for the one and only country that still uses the most archaic system of units on earth. Notice how much of the new machines today are metric be it bolts or sizes?