water softeners--why a company vs. basic one at a home depot?
jimnyo
12 years ago
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jimnyo
12 years agoRelated Discussions
Carrara Marble (Tile Shop) vs. Grecian Marble (Home Depot)
Comments (10)We used quite a bit of the grecian marble (incorrectly spelled greecian on the Home Depot website if you are searching for it). We used 12x12s that we cut into 6x12 bricks, 3x6 that we used in one bath as a herringbone pattern and one bath installed in a subway pattern, 6x6, chair rail and the 1x1 hex on the floor. In one shower we installed the Homedepot river rock/pebble mesh mosaic on the floor. We installed the tile in Feb/March so its been up for almost a year and it looks great. There is, however, a great variation in color. It is not a pure white. Some tiles are almost all gray and some have quite a bit of brown in them. Our installer was fantastic at pulling the out and arranging them so that the colors are scattered. We like the color disparity and movement but that's personal preference. Just don't expect a pure white. We did find several boxes that contained noticably thinner tiles (mostly with the 3x6 tiles). We simply packed these back up (save the little boxes it comes in)and returned them to Home Depot. This is a stocked item at our HD so it was easy to get if we needed more and easy to return. The hex mosaic tile was an online only item and we had a HUGE problem getting it delivered. It was through a freight company and they kept promising it and it wouldn't arrive. This could be just an issue in our area (Cincinnati) but it held us up for about a week. (It arrived two weeks later than promised). If I can figure out how I will post pictures as I think the bathrooms turned out great! No extra maintenance. Just sealed it. We were cautioned by the installer about rust which is impossible to remove from marble (often things like shaving cream cans are still metal and can rust). I'm sure newhomeowner is finished with the project but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for anyone considering the grecian marble....See MoreHome Depot Pricing on Granite & Install
Comments (19)Yesterday a contractor that HD recommended from a list called "Red Beacon" finished our upstairs guest bathroom. They recommend Red Beacon when the job is too small for one of their in house subs. It looks terrible. What a mess. Then he charged me way more than his bid. I didn't like the guy, just a weird dude, so I just paid him and told him how disappointed I was with the way he did it as in the grout lines were to be zero grout line and they are all different sizes up to a quarter of an inch when we agreed on an eighth of an inch. Not to mention he didn't put the tiles all running in the same direction of flow meaning the tiles have a directional pattern on them in the form of veins running through the marble. The tiles vary greatly in shading and he put darker ones all in a row and lighter ones randomly when it would have looked better to disperse them throughout. He didn't even install a threshold and had told me he would cut the tile in small rectangular pieces to meet the door jam but he ran the tile all the way to the entry and just cut off the edges and butted it against a thin metal strip and filled it in with grout. The tile cut isn't cut evenly so it's all running down hill as far as the butt joint against a metal strip. It isn't a metal threshold strip it's just a thin metal strip. I reminded him that he said he was going to do a threshold and he said oh yeah I did say that I don't know why I didn't and just shrugged. I told him I didn't think it looked good and would he like that in his house? He said no. I said what do you think we should do about it and he said that well if you ever have any other work in the future I could fix it then. What? I wanted to say there will never be another time. I paid him the full amount because we were alone in the house and I just don't need to be feeling like someone would do something to me or even say something to me that was really awful and with no witnesses here, he really could do/say whatever he wanted. It was so awkward. His skill level was just not up to doing this very small bathroom. I am not sure where to go from here. I don't want him coming back here. I can't even make myself go up there and look at it closely. It took him 3 long days to do 36 square feet of tile plus the side of a 5 foot bathtub and there was no tear out except for taking up that amount of carpet. I think I could manage getting over what I paid him but it's the materials that I am agonizing over. It was all Carrera marble tile and side splash on the face of the tub and a new Kohler toilet. I am starting to hate HDepot and Lowe's. Something always goes wrong when I have dealt with them and I don't know why they recommend people that don't have skill levels to meet even basic requirements. I honestly feel I could have done as good of a job. He also used three more boxes of tile than he estimated which would have been nearly half again as much as the space. I realize that setting tile on the diagonal takes more but not that much. So he bought more tile and I had to pay for that too. I cleaned up the driveway myself and there was so much wasted tile out there including some he was cutting in circles to place over the open trap for the toilet that smells so bad while working which I totally get but I had mentioned just setting a full tile on top of it as we have done in the past with the master remodel not cutting a custom tile piece just for the amount of time the drain was going to be open. Each tile costs several dollars and I saw at least three of them discarded when I was cleaning up I guess he was practicing on, not counting the ones that were upstairs. What is going on Home Depot?...See MoreWater Softener: Kinetico vs. Ecowater vs Culligan and other ???
Comments (83)@john how Define "good". Do they provide soft water? Yes, like any other ion exchange water softer that is properly sized and set up, it will provide soft water. The aren't doing anything that makes the water "more soft". Is it more reliable than other softeners? They are probably more reliable than very low-end water softeners, but very reliable softeners are readily available built with industry standard parts for (Fleck control valves, for example) for not much money. Does it provide better value? Value driven customers can probably do better by ordering a Fleck based softer online from Amazon. Do they provide better service? There's a large network of Culligan dealers who can install and service a water softener. If you need that level of service and want a national brand name, they probably aren't a bad choice. Local water treatment companies can also do a very good job, without the cost of a national brand. So, what sets them apart? Water softening is a commodity business - there's no secret sauce. There's no water softer that's going to make your water "more soft". There are some gimmicks out there - such as twin tanks and units that don't require electricity - that don't provide any real tangible benefits. Some of the hardware is better than others. But there is industry standard, highly reliable and highly serviceable hardware available for moderate cost. They have a memorable brand and a dealer network....See MoreAny comments on Home Depot installed windows?
Comments (67)Homesealed: The original nondisclosure did not include comment to remove negative material already posted. To continue the story since, though. The day after I posted my review here, I got an updated nondisclosure agreement where they had added a retroactive clause like you describe as well. Looking back at records, we first contacted home depot 3 months after installation about the issue. Home depot has not commented on what they believe was the problem is nor fixed it. The mason and the other window installation company indicate the wrong type of caulking was used against brick and the width of the caulk is too large. If home depot does not resolve things soon/we cannot reach a settlement, since I will not be signing the nondisclosure, I will try to post exactly what it says. It is very restrictive and aggressive. I won't be posting more right now though. I am going to try to contact the HD corporate office AND/OR go try to get the local store manager involved to resolve things first, but based on responses from the install people, it looks like I may have to take legal action for HD to repair this or get someone else to do so. I have not even been able to get them out here to fix the "elevator" or "balancer" or whatever it is called. They have not even looked at it. I am sending them a video today to remind them....See MoreUser
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