Who do you buy your home improvement supplies from?

[HandyOne]

As the title says, Who do you buy your home improvement supplies from?
I ask as this is a good topic for all the members to give others a possible new source of needed parts.
It would be nice if you can add what type of DIY items you get from the places you list.

You can put their link in your post.

 

[Sparky617]

For most items Lowe's - they are 2 miles away and have a good selection and hours that fit my schedule. The specialty trade houses (electrical, plumbing, lumber yards) tend to have Monday - Friday 7-5 hours meaning I need to take time out of my day job to go get supplies. Lowe's also gives me a 10% discount as a veteran. If I want something beyond the typical lumber carried at Lowe's I have a great lumber yard about 10 miles away that carries a wide variety of hardwoods. For pressure treated wood I have a local wood treating company that has much nicer stock that either HD or Lowe's. If I was building a deck I would certainly buy the supplies from them. For just a couple of PT 2x's I would just go to Lowe's.

Location and convenience are key. Some items I'll buy on line, but they need to be higher dollar items that don't cost an arm and a leg to ship. I just bought a 50 amp GFCI breaker for a great price from a pool supply place in southern California. The local electrical supply house hasn't been able to keep them in stock. Amazon substituted a 45 amp which wasn't acceptable and was twice the price.

 

[oldognewtrick]

For paint products I always go to the brand store, PPG or Sherwin-Williams. Their staff is a lot more knowledgeable about products that are best for an application. The S-W paint you get at Lowes is not the same quality that come from the brand store. Roofing items I always get from the supply house, mostly ABC roofing Supply because the box stores don't handle all the accessories items that a supply house handles. As Sparky said a lumber yard is the place to go for quantity wood items, for a piece of this or that I'll go to the box stores. I really don't like the box stores for plumbing items cause everything's picked through and most often put back in the wrong spot. More than once I bought PVC fittings I thought were all coming out of the right bin, but had wrong sizes mixed in.

I've found that supply houses have better customer service, availability of product and pricing that's competitive.

 

[Sparky617]

Our Lowe's has an actual plumber in the plumbing department so he's been helpful with my basement project. But you do have to look carefully in the bins when buying parts.

 

[zannej]

For cheap stuff when I need things fast, sometimes Walmart. The local hardware store closes on weekends and is closed after 5pm. I will sometimes get stuff from there that they don't carry at Tractor Supply or Walmart. I live about an hour away from the big box stores.

I get quite a bit of stuff from Lowes because they do military discount for online orders and never give me crap about getting the discount. HomeDepot doesn't do the discount and I've had them be rude about the discount.

Sometimes I can't find stuff in any of the local stores so I order from Amazon.