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Home Depot Complaints

Contractors Respond

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Carlotta, a contractor from Houston, writes (12/27/03):
I'm a female General Contractor who ownes a small remodeling company. I've read some of the complaints of the customers and have this to add. Large companies such as Home Depot are slowly putting small businesses out of business by offering the customers to install their products.

Home Depot has to hire contractors to do the installing in order to have quality work done. The problem is that the contractors' prices are being driven down by home Depot in order to get the customers to give the job of installation to them. Their prices are much less than the average cost for installation done by the average contractor.

When the customer searches for a contractor on his own and compares the price with Home Depot, he chooses the cheaper price. It's like the old saying, "You get what you pay for."

Most of the people at Home Depot are specialists in the fields of merchandise and materials. Most are not contractors. They may have a basic knowledge of the actual repair itself but do not have the skills of a good contractor. Therefore, they have to hire contractors to be on call to install their merchandise. They set the prices for the repairs, but this should only be done by a general contractor that has good estimating skills. Their low estimates keep small bussiness contractors from getting jobs because of the price differences.

Carlotta Stark
Houston Texas 77026

Darren, a contractor from Wichita, writes:
As for the dissatified Home Depot users, I can only say this: I am a contractor myself and I know that everyone wants to get the most for his/her hard-earned dollar and in this case you take a do-it-yourself store that is only going to be as good as the people it hires and the quality of work on its installs is only going to be as good as the quality of the cheap-labor-oriented companies they hire.

Some blame must go to the customer for being too trusting and not asking for sucessful installs, which are public info to anyone who asks, then basing your decision to do or not to do business.

In short, it is OK to buy materials at a resonable price but not everyone knows how to install properly. Would you hire a professional to do a real job or a handyman?

Darren Bohanon
Bohanon Woodworking
Wichita, Kansas

They're right. Consumers should always, always, always ask for a list of recent jobs the contractor has done and then check out those jobs -- go see them, talk to the prior customers. It's also important to have a clear contract that everyone understands and to be reasonable and understanding when glitches occur, as they almost always do. If Home Depot can give you a list of happy customers who've had similar jobs done, more power to them. But don't count on it.

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