The future of DIY

[The Medway Handyman]

We already have a dry ski slope so ner.

Wotfud hasn't got one of those :-)

[Rod]

High Wycombe has one. Err, had one. Till it burned down.

And will have one again, err, maybe, sometime. With a dome. :-)

[naffer]

The lack of consensus is interesting. Different folks seem to want different things from DIY outlets.

I would always do a compare between B&Q, Screwfix (or B&Q Lite, in fact) & Toolstation for branded items where I know what I want and only price/availability matters. For timber, I'm sure that good specialised suppliers are better. In my experience their wood is stored better and since they only sell wood, it has to be of good quality.

The places I avoid, unless very desperate, are the local outlets of the national builders merchants - silly prices with the good prices reserved for trade accounts that allow "tradesmen" to bill the full price to their customers while pocketing the difference. People slag off the B&Q staff but I think these other outlets recruit the people too dim for the big sheds. Example: went into TP for an item that I'd seen for =A312 in the Toolstation catalogue; =A318 was the price at their till. When I asked if that was correct the price dropped to =A313! The =A31 excess was about right for the petrol saved in not driving to TS. I suppose that's how TP stays in business, it can't be service or the with of its staff!

Worse still are local builders merchants with such as "the 20% re- stocking" charge when you have over-purchased and need to return bits. Nobody has mentioned how flexible the much maligned B&Q is when you need to take something back.

There's no one answer, you've got to work at it to get it right. Naffer

[geoff]

We let one of our neighbouring boroughs down the road build and pay for one instead ...

[Tim Watts]

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:31:42 +0000, John Rumm wibbled:

I don't like Wickes' attempt to be clever by ownbranding everything. Some stuff is obvious as to who it is made by (most waste pipes because it's stamped all over them) and Speedfit is obviously JG, but I *do* like to know what I am buying.

I fail to see the benefit of them doing it.

[Chris J Dixon]

Yet they now have a section of various ropes and chains which you can cut yourself, and some of these don't really look as though they would be fast movers.

Chris

[Tony Bryer]

Shoplifting? Refunds?

[Bruce]

If it enables me to buy a high quality branded item at a lower price, I'm all for it.

I have no personal knowledge of how this works in DIY. But in the food industry, many supermarket own brand items are top quality products that are sold at well below the price of the exact same product bearing the brand of its manufacturer.

[Jules]

I absolutely hate crap like that. If something fails on me a few years down the line, it makes it even harder to source spare parts for it...

[Andrew Gabriel]

So you might say they supply just enough rope to hang you with...

[Andy Champ]

And many are not. Which is why, for example, Kelloggs make a point of stating "We don't make cereal for anyone else".

And I curse the cheap screws I've bought in the past that look the same, but break off deep in the hole just as you are torquing them down...

Andy

[Jules]

Yes, I've found crappy ones sold "as the same thing" which have much thinner shafts than the "good" ones - i.e. they've used less material to save on costs. I wouldn't ever order screws unless I could see the physical item first...

[Owain]

However that does not necessarily mean that Portable Foods Manufacturing Co Ltd does not supply both Kelloggs and ANOther. Even if Portable Foods etc is wholly owned by Kelloggs.

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

indeed. I simply cannot tell the difference between kellogs and Waitrose 'own brand' apart from the color of the box, and the price.

[Bruce]

Poor you!

In my University days I had a friend who was studying medicine. He was involved in a research project that involved establishing the nutritional content of breakfast cereals, including corn flakes.

In his own time he carried out the same tests on the packaging, and found that it had a greater nutritional value than the contents. ;-)

[Rod]

I seem to remember that the quality own brand corn flakes are largely made by one company (from memory, Robertsons). And wasn't there something about them becoming a larger manufacturer of cornflakes that Kelloggs some time ago?

Anyone see Jimmy doing his DIY cornflakes the other week?

[The Natural Philosopher]

that all right. I only eat em twice a year anyway.

[geoff]

In message , Bruce writes

I'm sure that Snopes has something to say on that one

[Bruce]

Save money. Eat the box. ;-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Sounds like an urban myth to me as well