Hi,
I’ve been pricing plumbing fixtures for the ranch we’re building (2nd time out – going smaller). We went with the higher end plumbing supply house the 1st time around. They say that the faucets bought at Home Depot (for ex), that look the same and are supposedly the same as those at the big deal show rooms, are really NOT as good. That the “guts” underneath are inferior quality. I’m thinking, a model number is a model number, and it MUST be the same EXACT faucet at both places if it’s got the same model number.
Anyone know if there really is a difference besides price and service of the actual sales department between a higher end supply house and a Home Depot-type store? Any info from the more knowledgable of you out there would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
Replies
This is not breaking news.
Any company with enormous buying power can spec a product anyway they want. We want it to look like this, be built like this and put in a box that looks like this with these #'s on it.
If you look closely, there are odd nuances with the model #'s.
That's what i know about this subject.
Eric
I Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
It might be interesting to compare the numbers on the bar code they scan for the price. Those numbers ID the item, and the current price is looked up by the computer. I'd expect the bar code numbers to be different between different quality levels.
-- J.S.
Yes, there's a difference, most of the time. Usually an easy one to spot, but not always. Example. Moen Viletta faucet. Between Briggs and Menards, $40 difference. But the Menards one has plastic everything, the Briggs has brass. Look the same on the outside. Box looks the same. Name is the same. Year down the road, one still works. Guess which.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
A year down the road..both work because both have lifetime guts warrntys.
Briggs will send you any part for your faucet...just tell them which model you have...the part shows up in the mail in a few days.
I haven't had any trouble getting parts for any brand.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
Geez, now you're gonna have to lengthen that tag again. Add that in addition to not knowing framing, don't ask you about plumbing either! :-)
(But no, don't ask me. I'll tackle interior finish questions. If it's plumbing and I touch it, it leaks.)
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
Don't write me off yet...
When you call the manufacturer for the replacement cartridges..they don't ask if you bought it at the big box...they just send you the replacement part...forever.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
When you call the manufacturer for the replacement cartridges..they don't ask if you bought it at the big box...
well, if it needs a replacement cartridge, they know ya got it at the box...<G,D,&R>
"there's enough for everyone"
No they don't...and the point is...IT HAS A LIFETIME WARRANTY! How much better do you need it?
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
Yes, but I called Moen for a replacement cartridge for a kitchen faucet. they said it would go right out and be there in TWO WEEKS. Meanwhile, the big box did not stock cartridges.
So the HO asks me if I will take her dishes and wash them for two weeks. I got another faucet and threw the Moen in the trash.
My big box stocks the cartridges. Of course, you actually have to TELL the sales staff that they do, in fact, stock the cartridges. Then you have to show them where they are stocked. Then you have to tell them, and the cashier, that the cartridge is free as it is covered under a lifetime warranty.
Throw away a Moen faucet?! Next time, please send it to me. I'll give it a good home. At the very least, give it to Habitat For Humanity for their ReStore.
Regards,
Tim Ruttan
I've always gotten my replacements in a few days...and it doesn't matter which brand...or where I bought the stuff from.
I'm not saying that the box stuff is better...all I'm saying is that it all goes bad and all the manufacturers send the stuff out free. If you pay 500 for a faucet and it goes bad...it still will take a few days to get the replacement parts to you.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
Alright, I'm going against the grain here with you Blue, but only because my father is a master plumber, and I am close friends with another master plumber who took a leave of absence from his business to run the plumbing department at Lowes for a year. He decided he hated retail and is back running his own business now.
Both of them assured me there is no difference in the quality faucets they pick up at the supply house and the ones they pick up at Lowes and HD. There are distinct model numbers in some cases, because the big box stores insist on them to insure returned and warranted items were in fact sold by them initially, but the faucets and repair parts are identical. The primary reason for the difference in price is strictly volume.
Bottom line, according to these two men, who work with the faucets day in and day out, same parts, same faucets, same quality - occasionally a slightly different model number for retail reason.
These two men carry a lot of authoritative weight with me. Take their advice for what it's worth to you. I'm sure they would both admit to being wrong on occasion.
I know that is the case Golden because I had a nice faucet bought at a box. I needed a cartridge. I went online direct to the manufacture's site....found the model...and emailed a part request using their model number. A coupla days later...the parts showed up. No one knew where it was retailed from.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
Re: the Moen that was tossed. All this happened before I was internet savvy. The cartridge may have been free (I don't recall), but the Moen CS rep on the phone did tell me it would take 2 weeks. Most folks with three kids can't have the kitchen sink out of commission for that long -- which is why I just put in another faucet. This happened a year after we did the kitchen, and the HO felt this should be a no-charge call back for me, since even a "cheap" ($175) faucet shouldn't go south after that length of time. I agreed and bought/installed another faucet at my expense, and we called it square. I wasn't very happy, but she was.
High end fixtures that need to be special ordered are probably identical. Taps that are at the bottom end and stocked are different, but the guts are the same. The finish, and the packaging usually have small differences that add up when you figure how many HD orders.
I understand your pain nikkewood. When it comes to customer service, you're caught between a rock and a hard place.
Even if you installed a throwaway "temp", and then came back with the Moen, you're still out the time/labor dollars. You lose either way...but that's the nature of the service beast. Hopefully you're doing what Sonny suggests....keeping a "service" reserve and those expenses come out of it.
The service reserve is really a clever tax writeoff if I understand it correctly.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
trouble getting parts for any brand
Which is ok, if it's a broken part. The big-box Moens I replaces failed where the copper supply lines (first one was hot, the second was cold side) attached to the main body.
When the lines fail at the body juncture, that's not a pretty problem. Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Not real news here.
Point is that if you see two fixtures for sale. Both look the same and come in the same box but one is 20% less expensive you can pretty much tell there is likely to be some difference. Slight differences in model number can have large impacts.
Well,
Same rumour around here (CT) and my sis in NY says the same thing. I wouldn't even consider buying plumbing at a big box and advise my customers the same. In fact, the Grohe faucet I recently put in my own kitchen was $400 and cheaper at my local supply house than on the 'net. I have well water and the flow wasn't that great so I asked them on their website about removing the low-flow insert. They just asked for my address and sent me new ones for low pressure and it works great now!!
The reason I replaced it was because I intentionally installed a new, cheap, faucet in 1989 because I planned on remodeling the kitchen anyways. It was barely working when I took it out. However, the expensive bathroom faucets installed at the same time are still like new.
Years ago an old-timer told me: "Get the most expensive plumbing fixtures you can find." He was right, you really do get what you pay for. Think of it this way: "What gets used MANY times per day?"
Go to the high-end places to find what you like and then go to the "normal" supply houses and buy them!
Coincidentally, there was a piece in the NY Times a month or so about this issue, and they said almost exactly the same thing as efix2.
They had illustrations of the internal differences between the big box offerings and the high end stuff, and it was pretty amazing. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to faucets.
Well everyone, I'm a little crazed by the whole issue. I read all the replies to my husband, who suggested that I call the manufacturers directly and point blank ask. Reps from Kohler, Moen, Delta, and Grohe ALL SWEAR that the products are ABSOLUTELY the same, no matter where they're bought (as Golden Wrecked Angle said).
But do I believe them? Not really. I'm going to price things up at both places and make my husband decide!
Thanks again, all!
If you peruse the Moen website, you will find that there are two ways to create and price a faucet: one way is as a single part no / part, as sold in the big box stores. The other way is as sold by plumbing wholesalers.
They do have different part numbers, and yes, they are different.
Thank you to EVERYBODY!!!!!
My husband was right (AGAIN!) according to all of you. I appreciate the info very much - this house will be the last one we ever want to move into again, so "going the distance" is crucial. Many thanks to you all!
Robin,
I just purchased fixtures for our new bath from Faucet Direct.com and am happy with the quality of the pieces I chose. They represnt many Mfrs. so there is a huge choice. They also delivered within 3 days.
A great wives tale, but the're exactly the same. However, not buying from a local source, will eventually mean there will be only one source.
But then again, maybe Lowes will be there to compete.
First off, Welcome to BT.
You can make the stuff from the "big box" stores work, but the extra effort (read labor dollars) tends to wipe out any difference in the item cost. Sometimes.
It can also depend on how big a selection the PSH has--that can force a person off to the big box.
But, the SN/IPC are seldom the same between a PSH and the big box store. The outer, cosmetic, shells can be similar; but to hit the profit margins the big boxes insist on for the priveldge to be sold in the stores means that the manufacturers have to cut corners somewhere. Usually that's in the guts, or in the QC of the "guts." I wnet through two Moen lav faucets for a customer, once. Returned the first to the big box where the customer got it, and got a replacement. The replacement did not last a week. Found the "similar" model at one of my plumbing suppliers--no problem after that; after dealing with the sticker shock.