I really do like Wickes, partly because it's a serious place, not full of cushions and kitchenware, also because you can buy odd quantities to suit the job, e.g. five bricks or half a pack of bathroom tiles. And open to 8 even on Saturdays.
Builders merchants?
You have to be prepared to haggle though.....
Exactly. I was trying to find who it was who acquired them, but I do vaguely remembering comments as to why did they buy them and then an almost cultural outcry when the business was just closed down with virtually no warning.
Gamages published a catalogue in the autumn as did Hamleys for this very reason.
- Most of what they sell is mediochre at best (e.g. tools)
- Limited selection - often only one type of each thing. Paint is mainly own brand for example, and a poor selection.
- Timber quality is appalling.
I never get that attitude from other places because I don't allow them to play that game. However, I do mainly tend to buy items of one type from one place - e.g. electricals from WF, plumbing from PTS/BSS and so on. In this way, and with an account at each, there is a trading history. The only exception is if I have a project with a spend on materials expected to be greater than about £500. Then a request for quote goes to several places and I can go for best quality, price and availability.
- expensive.
Last time I compared like for like, B&Q were cheaper.
Owain
Would that be a sort of orangey-yellow?
Well spotted. Slipped in to see if people were paying attention.
I think so.
More to the point is that if I am going to visit a DIY store to buy a mixed set of items then I only want to go to one. This tends to be when the total expected spend is £50-100 or less. More than that and I select suitable trade suppliers. That being the case, I want to look across a typical set of purchases at the pricing, and certainly not dick around buying one item here, another there and so on.
B&Q is further from me than Focus but almost always has the items on this basis, usually a selection and overall across a basket of purchases generally better prices. Added to this, they seem to employ students at the weekends and quite a lot of staff from eastern Europe. I've always found them courteous and helpful and willing to put in the effort to help find things. Focus, OTOH, seems to employ mainly slobby teenagers at the weekends and I find them rude, unhelpful and generally with a DGAS attitude.
The market will decide.
I've found focus to not be particularly welcoming to female customers. I went in, intending to make one is a series of substantial purchases (doing up a newly-purchased home), and was carefully ignored by staff, who rushed to attend to every spotty youth who came up to the counter. I left, and went to B&Q, whose staff went out of their way to be helpful.
Sheila
Our local one are good on the basic building materials - things like plaster, cement etc are significantly cheaper than the BMs. Most other stuff is not that exciting though. The grey power tools are usually from a decent OEM, but often they want more for them that buying the real brand elsewhere!
Na, that it a pigment of your imagination.
And they do that lovely cordless drill with the quick change right angle drive. Only thing I've ever agreed with dribble about - except I've actually got one.
Oh no it isn't! The grey Kress power tools are excellent, great value & 3 year warranty. Hand tools are good as well. I have an excellent set of screwdrivers, great wire strippers, levels, post hole diggers, crowbars, trowels & various other bits & bobs which are used daily & hold up well
Plumbing fittings are cheaper than Screwfix.
I only buy magnolia :-)
Not as good as my local timber yard granted, but streets ahead of the stuff in B&Q
Hassle, takes longer than nipping into wickes, I've never been all that lucky getting the builders merchants to get as cheap as wickes (maybe I've not been after the correct stuff).
Also, builders merchants are not open evenings or Sundays which are the most convenient time for me and they also don't tend to have big displays of things (handy for the "I want a thingy wotsit" type shopping trip).
I like wickes. Down here in Folkestone the other options are Homebase (expensive and full of crap wicker furniture and lawnmowers) or the new B&Q which for the few things I've looked in there for have been expensive - it's not a warehouse one :-(
Darren
The power tools are not exclusively Kress though, the grey range includes some shed special badge engineered Chinese stuff as well as the better quality bits dotted in among the range. The prices are not usually that good compared with the original OEM (its harder to compare on the Kress ones, since there are not many outlets for the OEM branded versions in this country). Things like the 1/2" grey router is a badged version of the Freud FT2000E which is a nice router, but they sell it for about £20 more than you can get the Freud for from most online vendors. Corded SDS drills seem ok, but then again they are pretty much the same price as Makita.
Not so sure about trowels etc. I did a fair amount of plastering with a wickes trowel to start with. Once broken in it seemed ok, right up until the first time I used a Marshalltown one. There was no comparison. As for my Wickes pointing trowel, the handle fell off!
The Wickes stainless spade I bought (looked like a good bet because it had an extra long handle, which makes it a more useful length for me), Is as bendy as a damp leaf - it is quite a challenge trying to dig anything with it!
Toolstation is cheaper than both on copper. Plastic stuff is quite pricey at wickes... I bought some guttering stuff from them yesterday, and looking at the prices are quite revealing:
Wickes (screwfix)
112.5 deg offset downpipe bend £2.29 (£1.59) Downpipe bracket £1.29 (£0.74) Own brand PVA (5L) £9.99 (£4.99)
That's not much of a recommendation though ;-)
No worse than any of the other sheds IMO. I've got a Wickes Pro SDS drill that is pretty good (badged kress)
Yeah, paint is a crap choice in there I agree. Was more impressed with their water based satinwood a few years back than the Dulux one though.
Way better than B&Q and Homebase around here. And the staff appear to know what they are on about and are willing to help which certainly isn't the case in the Ashford B&Q in my experience - can't comment on the new Folkestone B&Q really, it's not been open long enough (but it seems expensive)
That's great if you buy enough to make accounts an option. I don't. I can't remember the last project I had 500 quid to spend on :-(
Darren
3 year warranties as a selling point don't do anything more for me than laser guides.
I looked at them but still prefer the Wera and CK ones.
I don't tend to use those kind of things apart from levels very much apart from some Marshalltown trowels.
I tend to buy in quantity from PTS.
I wouldn't buy timber at B&Q either.
If you don't hassle people for a better price, you are giving them money for no good reason.
On items likely to have significant cost either because the unit price is high or because of the volume, I do do some quick price checks then on visiting the merchant I know the price that I am looking for. Generally I let them make the first price suggestion and then tell them what I'm willing to pay. I'm honest about that and at least 80% of the time they accept. It's a question of doing some business at some price where they make a margin or not doing business. It's competitive. Having a trading history does help as well.
I pick mid mornings and mid afternoons during weekdays to go to the merchants; same thing for the odd occasions that I go to DIY stores, slthough I may go to one of those shortly befor closing. I avoid weekends at them like the plague - too many people browsing, wandering about aimlessly and too many small kids running about and getting in the way. They should be left at home.
Given that situation, I would be looking at larger Castorama and Leroy Merlin stores that are at least 30km from Calais.
Me too. I'm in a DIY store every day picking up one thing or another & Wickes I reckon is best overall.
Agree about Homebase, bloody expensive. Had to buy a bag of Postcrete in Homebase taday - £4:99. Only £3:49 in Wickes.
I have a Homebase within walking (IICBA) distance of home (next to Sainsbury's), so. although it might appear expensive for certain items, if I have to nip out for say a few screws it can be cost effective (and convenient) to get my bits at said HB...
Obviously a planned job will involve a bit more research
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