Reminder - Shop Around

I think the real lesson here is don't shop at Home Depot.

I am once again getting reacquainted with the local supply houses after getting reaching my pain threshold with Home Depot and such. I am being very pleasantly surprised at not only the price but the levels of actual customer service as compared to the big box stores. Home Depot has become clueless to customer service, and product quality is getting to be a close

Dang Rumpy, where have you been. Did you finish that kitchen and how is that saw working out for you? :~)

How come every time I call a lumberyard, they are way more expensive than Home Depot or Menards? 2x4s are usually like $1 more each.

I don't get any extra pay for extra hours at work, so I spend my time finding the few good 2x4s at Home Depot or Menards. If I was building a garage or something I would probably order from a lumberyard.

For some reason, Home Depot likes to wreck good plywood by putting on racks that aren't level. One of the three arms will be lower or higher than the other two almost invariably.

Brian Elfert

Sometimes that's true- but in the case of Menards, they've got people who do nothing but sort through the crap as it comes in and restamp it as a higher grade if it meets a minimum requirement. So you're really not comparing apples to apples there. If you want to be fair, you've got to compare the lumberyards' #2 common to Menards' "select". They're often still cheaper, but it closes the margin a bit, and you still have excessive warping with the Menard's crap unless you buy an entire pallet- they seem to stay a little straighter if they remain banded until you use them.

I'm guilty of getting framing lumber from them about 50% of the time myself, as I'm often trying to hit a lower price point- but there is a real qualitative difference between Menards or HD stuff compared to any decent lumberyard.

I don't get it- you don't get paid any extra for putting in more time, so you opt for the more time-consuming option? You're a real go-getter...