18mm MDF

[The Medway Handyman]

Hi

Anyone noticed the pricing of Wickes & B&Q 18mm MDF sheets?

Full 2440 x 1220 sheets are around £15 - a good price, about £5.00 per sq mtr.

But a half sheet 2440 x 607 in Wickes is actually dearer than a full sheet at £15.45 - more than twice the price per sq mtr - roughly £10. B&Q want over £15 for an 1819 x 607.

A quarter sheet 1220 x 607 is even worse @ nearly £11 in both stores.

OK, charge a premium price for smaller sheets but surcharges of over 100% and nearly 200% are simply excessive. I'd never realised just how much extra you paid for a smaller sheet.

Full sheets are simply too heavy for a one man band like me to manage, so I need to be able to buy smaller sizes.

I simply don't want to be ripped off like this, so I started to shop around. B&Q at the other end of the towns have a cutting service, but there is always a long wait for the droid. Bizarrely, if you wanted two 1220 x 607 sheets though, it would be cheaper to have them cut from a full sheet & leave the rest behind!

Found a local independent timber yard who charge about the same as Wickes/B&Q for a full sheet and 50p per cut to any size you want. And they cut it accurately.

Dave - The Medway Handyman

[R]

Buy a full sheet and have them cut in half for 50p.

[The Medway Handyman]

Exactly :-)

[R]

and if you smile nicely at the little helpers in the stores they even carry it out to your van with you and help load it in.

[Mark Spice]

Or do what my Dad has been known to do - turn up with a genny, circular saw and a set of trestles and then cut it size in the carpark....

Cheers

Mark

[Jules]

One of the local DIY/reclaimation places I use is more than happy for me to take my own power tools in* and cut things on the shop floor so I can load them into the car/truck... I suspect the H&S brigade in the UK would have a complete fit about that :-)

• I've not tried doing it at one of the major chain sheds yet though - they might be slightly more wary of allowing it!

cheers

Jules

[tony sayer]

In article , R scribeth thus

Haven't you got a decent timber merchant in the Medway Dave?.

Round here we're got Ridgeons far better then any of the DIY sheds;!..

[The Medway Handyman]

There are a couple, but they are right at the other end of the towns, PITA to get to. Its about 6 miles away & can take 30 mins to get to from me. Downside of living somewhere bisected by a river.

The local one I mentioned with the MDF is actually the place I buy all my decking timber. Never realised they even sold sheet materials.

Its a bit of a 'fork andles' place. No web site, no price lists. I interrogated to bloke cutting my MDF & found out they stock loads of useful stuff I never realised.

[fred]

In article , R writes

Last time I bought at B&Q it was 3 free cuts per sheet. Go at quiet times to avoid a queue, never had to wait at my local place.

[PeterC]

I can sympathise with this. I want to put some 18mm ply in the loft, but no chace of doing it on my own - it needs 3 people, especially as the hatch will take a full sheet, just!

[dennis]

I have borrowed demo stuff at B&Q to cut boards up before now.

[dmc]

A couple of times now I've seen a guy in the carpark of Wickes with a sawboard and a natty little cordless circ saw chopping up 8x4 sheets to fit in his van.

If I've seen him twice chances are he does it frequently - I'm not in there all that often!

Darren

[The Medway Handyman]

Oh come on Dennis, all the DIY sheds have big disclaimers saying they won't lend any sort of tool out to a customer for any reason. Get real.

Fuckwit.

[geoff]

He still hasn't qualified his statement on loft insulation yet

but then ... what do you expect

[meow2222]

=BF=BD5.00 per sq

=BD10. B&Q want

I figured the resulting savings from cutting stuff up could justify a cordless saw :)

NT

[R]

I figured the resulting savings from cutting stuff up could justify a cordless saw :)

Alternatively one of those quaint of fashioned pieces of kit . . . . A handsaw.

[TheOldFellow]

Here I just ring up Atkinsons (used to be Althams) in Cockermouth and they deliver the next day. They don't cut, but I have my trestles set up when the guy comes, and we put the boards on the trestles together.

8x4 18mm MDF is the only size I need help with, even 18mm ply is lighter.

I get a lot of board (MDF, ply and plaster) from them, but they don't charge extra for delivery anyway. I do slip the delivery guy a fiver every now and then though - mostly to stop him loading the top board of a new stack (which is always damaged somehow) - occasionally he brings me one of those as an 'extra'.

R.

[Tournifreak]

In fairness, I needed to cut up some 8' posts in B&Q yesterday. They told me that the sawing service was only for sheet materials, but if I asked at the trade counter, they'd lend me a handsaw. Which they did. I was rather surprised, but very pleased.

My local B&Q seems to have a more relaxed approach to H&S than my local Wickes. I've vowed never to go there again after an argument with the store manager about their petty rules.

Jon.

[Steve Firth]

I used to be a fell-runner, so it doesn't worry me too much. I'm not a power lifter and one doesn't need to be to transfer lightweight wooden sheets into a van. "I'm bigger than you are" crap doesn't impress me that much neither does "I have more stamina than you."

And TBH I don't give a f*ck about your state of health, it's the tosser who keeps telling people that health information about the dangers of smoking is bollocks then amusingly informs the world be can't lift an

8x4 sheet that amuses me.

[mark]

I'd consider myself

oooo get you! So manly!

mark