1. Use The ProDesk
If you place a large enough order ($2500 worth or more to be precise), you qualify to place your order through the ProDesk (even if you aren't a construction professional), and have it sent to "the bid room", this process takes a few minutes, but it results in you being offered a discount on your large order. Last week, we saved about 10% on our first $3000 bulk item purchase. Needless to say, we were happy about saving money- but there were other benefits to placing the order through the ProDesk as well.
The largest benefit (from my perspective) was that we didn't have to run through the store gathering all the items for our order ourselves. Instead, we just went through the store, noting the SKU of each item we wanted and the number of items we wished to purchase on a list. (If you're familliar with the items you want and are comfortable picking them out from Home Depot's website, this whole process can be done online). At the end of our shopping, we presented this list to the ProDesk associate, who entered it into the computer and got us our discount. Then we were done. We arranged a time for delivery of our order to the build site (We decided to 2 days after we placed the order, but it could have been even sooner than that), and the Home Depot staff managed the rest. Sure, this meant we couldn't site each board that was in our order, but the effort saved was worth having to return a few twisted boards.
The other big benefit that we took advantage of was the ability to add items onto our order for 5 days after we placed it. It turns out that even with a detailed materials list in hand, we still forgot a ton of stuff that first day, and ended up going back to Home Depot several times to add things to our order. (These things we did go through the store and pick out ourselves, I don't know if it's an option to have them schedule a second delivery, my guess is that they'd probably do it, but charge a fee). It looks like this is something that not every one at the customer service desk knows how to do, so you might spend 30 minutes standing there while they hem and haw over it, but it gets done in the end. You get the same discount applied to the add-on items as you received on your initial bulk order.
If you place a large enough order ($2500 worth or more to be precise), you qualify to place your order through the ProDesk (even if you aren't a construction professional), and have it sent to "the bid room", this process takes a few minutes, but it results in you being offered a discount on your large order. Last week, we saved about 10% on our first $3000 bulk item purchase. Needless to say, we were happy about saving money- but there were other benefits to placing the order through the ProDesk as well.
The largest benefit (from my perspective) was that we didn't have to run through the store gathering all the items for our order ourselves. Instead, we just went through the store, noting the SKU of each item we wanted and the number of items we wished to purchase on a list. (If you're familliar with the items you want and are comfortable picking them out from Home Depot's website, this whole process can be done online). At the end of our shopping, we presented this list to the ProDesk associate, who entered it into the computer and got us our discount. Then we were done. We arranged a time for delivery of our order to the build site (We decided to 2 days after we placed the order, but it could have been even sooner than that), and the Home Depot staff managed the rest. Sure, this meant we couldn't site each board that was in our order, but the effort saved was worth having to return a few twisted boards.
The other big benefit that we took advantage of was the ability to add items onto our order for 5 days after we placed it. It turns out that even with a detailed materials list in hand, we still forgot a ton of stuff that first day, and ended up going back to Home Depot several times to add things to our order. (These things we did go through the store and pick out ourselves, I don't know if it's an option to have them schedule a second delivery, my guess is that they'd probably do it, but charge a fee). It looks like this is something that not every one at the customer service desk knows how to do, so you might spend 30 minutes standing there while they hem and haw over it, but it gets done in the end. You get the same discount applied to the add-on items as you received on your initial bulk order.
2. Bring A Materials List
Thinking about all the items we had to add onto our order brings me to my second lesson. Bring with you as complete a materials list as you can compile. True, it probably won't have everything on it because we humans are imperfect creatures who end up with simple problems like "Oh, I bought 5000 nails, I should probably have looked into buying a hammer as well...", but having as complete a list as possible will keep moments like this to a minimum.
Some items on our list were so simple, we were able to look them up online, get the SKU for the item, write it down on our list, and not think about it again (that is, we didn't bother looking them up in the store as we already had all the information we needed to order it at the desk). Other items we weren't as familiar with and so we didn't feel as comfortable shopping for online, so we would find the section of the store and browse a bit- ask a few questions of the associate in the area, and compare similar products to figure out which one is the one we needed for our project.
Organizing our materials list by general department (tools, lumber, fasteners, etc) helped keep us organized and focus, and saved us time, but going through the list was still a very lengthy process, which brings me to my third lesson...
Thinking about all the items we had to add onto our order brings me to my second lesson. Bring with you as complete a materials list as you can compile. True, it probably won't have everything on it because we humans are imperfect creatures who end up with simple problems like "Oh, I bought 5000 nails, I should probably have looked into buying a hammer as well...", but having as complete a list as possible will keep moments like this to a minimum.
Some items on our list were so simple, we were able to look them up online, get the SKU for the item, write it down on our list, and not think about it again (that is, we didn't bother looking them up in the store as we already had all the information we needed to order it at the desk). Other items we weren't as familiar with and so we didn't feel as comfortable shopping for online, so we would find the section of the store and browse a bit- ask a few questions of the associate in the area, and compare similar products to figure out which one is the one we needed for our project.
Organizing our materials list by general department (tools, lumber, fasteners, etc) helped keep us organized and focus, and saved us time, but going through the list was still a very lengthy process, which brings me to my third lesson...
3. Take Your Time.
Next time I have to place a bulk order at Home Depot, I'm going to devote an entire day to the process. Not that it will actually take me a whole day, but the last thing I want to interfere with me making the purchases I;ll need to complete the Tiny House is thinking about all the other things I was supposed to do that day while struggling to get through my list. Ordering several thousand dollars worth of construction materials takes time. Period. Rushing through things results in mistakes, in buying the wrong items, missing items, and ultimately it takes more time to correct these mistakes than it would have done to just take your time and do it right the first time.
Next time I have to place a bulk order at Home Depot, I'm going to devote an entire day to the process. Not that it will actually take me a whole day, but the last thing I want to interfere with me making the purchases I;ll need to complete the Tiny House is thinking about all the other things I was supposed to do that day while struggling to get through my list. Ordering several thousand dollars worth of construction materials takes time. Period. Rushing through things results in mistakes, in buying the wrong items, missing items, and ultimately it takes more time to correct these mistakes than it would have done to just take your time and do it right the first time.
4. Find Your Own Items
It wasn't until several trips to Home Depot had passed and I finally embraced the lesson of taking my time that I found the value of actually selecting your own items. Initially, my go-to strategy for my Home Depot shopping was to find the department where the item I wanted was located, find the sales associate for that aisle, and then explain to them what item I wanted and let them locate the item within their aisle. I figured this was the most efficient way to do things, and I'm sure that any one who's had the intimidating experience of an aisle filled floor-to-ceiling with nearly identical boxes of nails and screws has had similar ideas. But, it turns out, this isn't really a great plan.
The example of the fasteners aisle is actually a great example from our own shopping trip, and I'll use it to explain why relying on the sales associate can be a mistake. It starts with the assumption that the sales associates know every item in their assigned aisle. This turns out to be sadly unreliable, but it is an assumption that I held when I went in to make our first bulk order. Thus, when I saw "2 1/2 inch Self Tapping Screws x 300" on my materials list, and I saw the sea of different screws, I went to the associate in the fasteners section and asked him where I might find 2 1/2" self tapping screws. He took me to a section of the aisle where there were a variety of self tapping screws, and we found that Home Depot carried boxes of ten 2 1/2" self tapping screws. I asked if they came in bulk, and the associate told me no. Because I was in a hurry (I hadn't learned lesson #3 yet), I didn't bother to double check this, and didn't really look too closely at the screw either. Instead, I just ordered 30 boxes so that I could get our 300 screws and move onto the next thing on my list.
It wasn't until the screws were delivered that a good friend who was looking out for us and is more familiar with construction than we are took a look at the screws that we were aware of a problem. The screws were hex-head screws, which meant that the head of the screw would protrude about 1/2" above the surface of whatever it was screwed into. As were were going to use these screws to attach our subfloor sheathing to the trailer, it was kind of important that the screws were at least close to flush with the sheathing so that we could then install the proper floor on top of them. So, we went back to Home Depot to see if there was any alternative.
My first move was to go to the associate in the fasteners aisle, and asked him if they carried any 2 1/2" self tapping screws with normal heads. He directed me again to the section with the small boxes and bags of self tapping screws, and we were able to find a bag of five 2" self tapping screws with a normal head, but according to the sales associate, "that's the best you're going to find, I'm afraid.". In the time that it took for us to come to this conclusion, Sam and gone off on his own to a different section of the aisle and found a 5-pound box of flat headed 2 1/2" self tapping screws specifically for wood-to-metal connections. We bought two of the 5-pound boxes, and haven't relied on a Home Depot sales associate's advice since.
It wasn't until several trips to Home Depot had passed and I finally embraced the lesson of taking my time that I found the value of actually selecting your own items. Initially, my go-to strategy for my Home Depot shopping was to find the department where the item I wanted was located, find the sales associate for that aisle, and then explain to them what item I wanted and let them locate the item within their aisle. I figured this was the most efficient way to do things, and I'm sure that any one who's had the intimidating experience of an aisle filled floor-to-ceiling with nearly identical boxes of nails and screws has had similar ideas. But, it turns out, this isn't really a great plan.
The example of the fasteners aisle is actually a great example from our own shopping trip, and I'll use it to explain why relying on the sales associate can be a mistake. It starts with the assumption that the sales associates know every item in their assigned aisle. This turns out to be sadly unreliable, but it is an assumption that I held when I went in to make our first bulk order. Thus, when I saw "2 1/2 inch Self Tapping Screws x 300" on my materials list, and I saw the sea of different screws, I went to the associate in the fasteners section and asked him where I might find 2 1/2" self tapping screws. He took me to a section of the aisle where there were a variety of self tapping screws, and we found that Home Depot carried boxes of ten 2 1/2" self tapping screws. I asked if they came in bulk, and the associate told me no. Because I was in a hurry (I hadn't learned lesson #3 yet), I didn't bother to double check this, and didn't really look too closely at the screw either. Instead, I just ordered 30 boxes so that I could get our 300 screws and move onto the next thing on my list.
It wasn't until the screws were delivered that a good friend who was looking out for us and is more familiar with construction than we are took a look at the screws that we were aware of a problem. The screws were hex-head screws, which meant that the head of the screw would protrude about 1/2" above the surface of whatever it was screwed into. As were were going to use these screws to attach our subfloor sheathing to the trailer, it was kind of important that the screws were at least close to flush with the sheathing so that we could then install the proper floor on top of them. So, we went back to Home Depot to see if there was any alternative.
My first move was to go to the associate in the fasteners aisle, and asked him if they carried any 2 1/2" self tapping screws with normal heads. He directed me again to the section with the small boxes and bags of self tapping screws, and we were able to find a bag of five 2" self tapping screws with a normal head, but according to the sales associate, "that's the best you're going to find, I'm afraid.". In the time that it took for us to come to this conclusion, Sam and gone off on his own to a different section of the aisle and found a 5-pound box of flat headed 2 1/2" self tapping screws specifically for wood-to-metal connections. We bought two of the 5-pound boxes, and haven't relied on a Home Depot sales associate's advice since.
5. Relax.
This lesson is more subtle than the others, but I think it may be the most important. If you can't relax, you can't really take your time, and if you can't take your time, you're not going to do a good job of selecting which product is best for you, and in the end you're just going to make more work for yourself. I've found that one of the things that makes it hardest for me to relax in Home Depot is the loud noises inside the warehouse like building. Taking this into account, the last several times I've needed to focus in Home Depot, I've brought out my earbuds (which block out a lot of the ambient noise) and listened to some quiet music while deliberating about my potential purchases. Perhaps for you, relaxing involves bringing a water-bottle or a snack into the store to make sure you don't get dehydrated or hungry while shopping. Maybe it's as simple as making sure you go to the bathroom before you start shopping- having to pee really makes it hard to take your time and focus on the decisions in front of you. Whatever these steps are for you, just take a few minutes to think them through before you set out, and do what you need to to make sure that you'll stay relaxed and comfortable throughout your shopping trip.
That's it for now, I'm afraid. I'm sure that there will be more lessons learned as we continue with this process. I look forward to figuring out what they are.
This lesson is more subtle than the others, but I think it may be the most important. If you can't relax, you can't really take your time, and if you can't take your time, you're not going to do a good job of selecting which product is best for you, and in the end you're just going to make more work for yourself. I've found that one of the things that makes it hardest for me to relax in Home Depot is the loud noises inside the warehouse like building. Taking this into account, the last several times I've needed to focus in Home Depot, I've brought out my earbuds (which block out a lot of the ambient noise) and listened to some quiet music while deliberating about my potential purchases. Perhaps for you, relaxing involves bringing a water-bottle or a snack into the store to make sure you don't get dehydrated or hungry while shopping. Maybe it's as simple as making sure you go to the bathroom before you start shopping- having to pee really makes it hard to take your time and focus on the decisions in front of you. Whatever these steps are for you, just take a few minutes to think them through before you set out, and do what you need to to make sure that you'll stay relaxed and comfortable throughout your shopping trip.
That's it for now, I'm afraid. I'm sure that there will be more lessons learned as we continue with this process. I look forward to figuring out what they are.
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