Home Depot sucks
 

When we moved into our last house we done some reno work and the closest place was HD. After two weeks I was so fade up, I drive an extra 20km to a small hardware store. Every time I purchased some thing from the independent store I scanned the bill and e-mailed it to the Store Manager and District Manager. After 6 month doing that, I got an e-mail from the district manager telling me they got the drift and changes will happen. 5 years later nothing changed.
The IQ of the staff is below the IQ of a ping bong ball.
What can you expect form store staff, when the manager never finished high school, or came over from local MacDonald.

That's great!

Went to HD this AM looking for a cordless 18v driver-drill to replace the trusty Makita that has disappeared (whether stolen from my backyard treehouse project, or lost in the whirlwind that is the wife's house cleaning, I dunno).

They only have the new LiON Makitas, $250 for an 18v, very spiffy but won't use any of my existing NiMH batteries. Sigh.

So, went on craigslist, bought a 18v Makita 6347 driver drill plus two chargers plus three 18v NiMH 2.6AH batteries w/ two cases for $75, all nearly new. Why two cases and two chargers? Because also included the Makita 5036 cordless circular saw. Sorry that I did not stimulate the HD economy.

Maybe you did, the guy that sold you the tools may have upgraded to LION Makita at HD or Lowes. Only thing is most of this stuff is now made in China, so we'll keep the Chinese factories booming.

pd less than that for a brand new dewalt drill at HD.

just have to be comfortable plugging in a cord.

I don't even bother trying HD for power tools. Tool Crib is an excellent company, and you can't beat their prices. If it exists, they will have it.

I received a radial arm saw purxchased at HD as a christmas gift from the missus. I really didn't need it, so I took it back, unopened in the original box. It had HD routing tags on it so I figured since I didn't have the receipt with me it would be no problem, especially since I was willing to accept a store credit in lieu of a cash refund.

Wrong....they have a policy if you do not have the receipt, they will only reimburse you a partial percentage of the purchase price even in store credits (something like 65%). Luckily we found the receipt later and I took it back for a cash refund. Weird policy.

tool crib rocks. I always try my local professional tool co. first. I need to keep them in business incase I need a tool in a heart beat and don't have to have home depot's hands around my neck. Bosch for example, have what used to be a B line tool that sold through home centers. The tool looks the same, but it has a different #. It is not their industrial tool.