Well, we are still in the process of moving into the new place in the DC area, so the wife pulls out the "honey dew (do)" list. So far, most have not been bad, and in fact, a lot of them have been my idea.

So I get to the point where it comes time to install a garage door opener. We have a two car garage, and while one side has one, the other doesn't. So I head off and find a garage door opener.

After installing the last one, i decided maybe this time I would let someone else install it. Then I see the price. Starting at $106. **** me sideways. No way in hell am I paying someone for a 30 minute job $106+. So back home we go with kit in hand, ready to install another.

I take my time. Everything goes pretty smooth. Oops, forgot to put that bracket on both sides. No worries, easily fixed. Warning sign #1. When you **** something up, and it is easy to fix, you are DOOMED.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Anyway, now comes time to mount the upper bracket. Ah ****. Whoever built this garage was a total ****up. Hint #2. When you notice major design flaws, be prepared for more. So around the house I go looking for a scrap 2x4 to bolt in as a brace to mount the bracket. Nope, no scrap. Ah well. Back to Home Depot.

I ask about some scrap wood, and the employee points me to the cut it yourself area. Low and behold, there is scrap wood there. Amazing. Usually you ask for scrap wood and they send you to the toilet section. Hell, I even remember to buy the lag bolts I wanted to mount it.

Get back home, mount it. Life is good. Now it comes time to mount the opener to the ceiling. Ah, **** you. You are ****ing kidding me! No goddamned mounting bar for the ceiling??? WHAT THE ****? Oh yeah, while we are at it, **** me on wanting carriage bolts to mount the bracket onto the garage door itself! Here, use the 8' long ****ing screws that will only stick out a ****ing mile and probably blind the postman when he delivers the mail. Let alone the fact you won't even be able to get the door open because the screws will block the track!

/sigh

Well, at this point, my wife offers to help. Hint #3. When the wife offers to do something even remotely technical, politely turn her down. I love her to death, but she doesn't know **** about tools. Hell, I barely know anything about them, but she makes me look like a genius on that stuff.

Ok dear. I need a mounting bar (see the one above the other opener? Just like that.) and I also need three 2.5 inch long, 3/16 carriage bolts and 3 nuts to go with them. Here. let's write that down. Thanks, sweety.

****.

**** **** ****.

She comes back with machine screws. Machine screws. Not to mention the three self locking bolts that are the wrong size. /facepalm But hey, those machine screws are dead on 2.5 inches. If she would have just been a friend, I could have heart punched her. But she did get the correct mounting bar. So for the sake of marital bliss, I bite my tongue, and head back myself.

Anger rising. Urge to killl rising.

Ok, let's try this again. Garage door bracket goes on, tighten it down, wait for door to crack and split in two.

Holy ****, it didn't. Uh-oh.

I should have known.

Yes, yes. If you read this long, I salute you. Here comes the payoff.

I measure out how far I want the opener mounted. I line it up. Whip out the stud finder. Hmmmm. No studs? Impossible. Heck I even measure out in 16" increments. Nothing. Ok fine, bitch. Time to start pattern drilling with a small bit. Holy ****, I hit something.

But I can't punch through it. What the ****? Try again in a different spot, same thing.

Aluminum ****ing rafters. For the three goddamned seconds those things were popular, that was when this house was built. ALUMINUM ****ING RAFTERS. I can't believe this ****ing horseshit. ALUMINUM ****ING RAFTERS!!!!!!!!!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! !!!!

So now, if I want that garage door opener finished, I have to cut away some drywall, punch my way through the metal, then drop a bolt down through the rafter, and replace the ****ing drywall.

Instead of a simple drilling of a lag screw up into the stud, which would take all of 5 minutes to drill the pilot holes and hand crank them in place.


Whoever thought metal studs in a residential home was a good idea, **** you and die. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!

Hahaha.

I just moved into a new house a month ago and, with help from my dad, installed an automatic garage door opener. What a pain in the ass (especially when it's well below freezing).

Because of that and many other projects (low voltage wiring, temporary ghetto mailbox, blinds, etc) I went to Lowes about 8 times in 3 days. I remember reading the garage door installation instructions and reading lines like:

"Now attach the drive unit to the ceiling using mounting brackets (not included)."

And thinking...... "@#$!@%@%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Aaaand now you see why they charge 106 to install the @#$% things.

It is the cheap man that spends the most.

God...I have to install one of those soon. I went to open my garage last week and the motor started smoking.

Good thing for me = Open rafters, open uninsulated walls.

I am sorry for your pain, however. But, the good news is that all you need is to drill a hole through the drywall, get a nail and make a dimple in the rafter, then get self tapping screws. Might make a mess...but will be hellu simple compared to taping and mudding around any kind of brackets or wires. /shudder When I moved into my house, I was forced by law to install a 1 hour firewall on the wall between my attached garage and my house. Man...talk about learning drywall the hard way.

Yeah.. there's often a good reason for these prices...

I woulda paid the 106 bucks, and i like to do that kinda stuff heh.

you could have always have pulled out the drill, made a hole in the rafter and used a toggle bolt and been done with it....

$3 pack of toggle bolts > $50 drywall patch

A toggle bolt wouldn't have done squat considering I couldn't drill through the metal rafters to begin with.

Metal rafters > drill bits for wood.

It is moot now anyway. 2 self tapping sheet metal screws and a lot of muscle later, the sucker is mounted and working. I may get froggy and look for something that seems a bit more secure later, but considering I pulled on the mounting bracket with almost my full weight, and it stayed put, it should be OK.

So the real answer is, you need more tools, because you didnt have the right stuff for the job. There fore your wife should comply to your request for a shopping spree at home depot!

Home Depot? BLASPHEMY!!

Any Home Depot I've ever walked into is

1. disorganized - e.g. plumber's putty is located nowhere near the items you would use it with

2. populated with invisible and unhelpful staff -. I walked around for 15 minutes trying to find ANYONE that could help me locate a 'firring strip' because I wasn't told that it was a 1" x 2" - they had to call in 3 different guys to help me...

3. awful to checkout of - they have 10 aisles, but only 1 is open, and the entire store is one big winding line to get out of ther. Or none of them, and they want you to lift and scan a 20lb tub of drywall mud in the Self Checkout which then tells you, after you've put the item in the 'bagging area' that you've removed the item from the 'bagging area' and is now checking the weight for 10 minutes...

Lowe's is coming to my area, supposedly in March. I'd see that Homo Depot across the highway fall into the pits of Hell before I'd go in there again once Lowe's is built. Any Lowe's I've been to has been the opposite of my experiences at Home Depot.

Getting keys made at the one near me is an adventure in itself, that typically requires a two man team. As soon as anyone so much as eyes the key stand curiously, employees disappear into the air ducts. Having someone to flush them out from the corners of the store they wind up in is so much faster than waiting the requisite hour for someone who just got on shift and wasn't alerted to stay clear of the key stand to round the corner.

Move to Maine and leave all your doors unlocked. Who needs keys? :p

I think we have a phenomenon here!

I'll call it "The Home Depot Zone" for lack of a better term. The employees are able to phase into this zone, which lies just outside the normal range of perception of we, the shoppers.

They are impish little creatures, and they find it terribly amusing to walk away from a shopper who is obviously in need of assistance, round the corner, and slip into THDZ before the shopper can catch up. To the shopper, the employee appears to be moving slowly, but this is an illusion - a shopper will NEVER catch up.

The then out-of-phase employee snickers for about half an hour before reappearing in a different department... where he then amuses himself by telling the shoppers that he doesn't work in that department and that they'll have to find someone that does.

Meanwhile, the out-of-phase employee who does work in that department is just about rolling on the floor laughing, and spills his soda, which then phases into our space as a sticky mess in the aisle that threatens to take the soles off of the shopper's shoes as he tries to push his cart through it.

The left wheel of the cart then sort of sticks to the floor for the rest of the shopper's trip, making it difficult to steer...

Sears. Where all your needs for tools will be met.

When I've had keys made at "hardware" stores, however, never has a single one worked. Waited half an hour for a very official looking guy to spend 15 minutes matching and finally getting the keys into that stupid machine. Always had to take them back.

Frustrated trip to Wal-Mart, some little old lady throws the keys in for a total time of 3 and a half minutes, and those keys work like a charm. Go figure.

My town had 5 hardware stores about 5 years ago: Levis, Lowes, Home Depot, HQ and Mr. Hardware. Out of those, Lowes was the best one, with Levis being decent also. Mr. Hardware was good if you needed help figuring out what you needed for a project, but it was a lot more expensive. So of course, those three, along with Home Depot, have since closed, and we're stuck with the worst one, HQ.

HQ is a lot like Home Depot is being described here, with the addendum that nothing you buy at HQ ever works correctly the first time for a project, because it is all mislabelled. Also, when you get to the checkout, they have to call in the CEO of the company, or someone equally difficult to get a hold of, because they can't get the correct price (or usually, any price) to scan on the register.

that's weird. i've never had a problem finding help at home depot. there's usually someone walking by. they usually offer to load the stuff into my car too.

That's cause you're a girl! :D

I've had some of the same experiences. I'm not a very crafty, do-it-yourself kinda guy, so I expect to have some help when I walk in there. I will say this... we have a Lowe's and a Home Depot in my town. Funny thing is, if you were color blind... you wouldn't know which one you were in. The stores are set up almost exactly the same, with just a few minor changes.

And i'm serious. If you went in for oh say a simple light switch. The switches, plates, and whatever else you need are located on the same shelf, in the same area of the same aisle in each store. The only difference is the color of the shelves.

my Home Depot!!! Great staff. Old timers that know thier ^$%%. If I swallow my pride and admit I have no ^$%# clue what I'm doing, they always steer me right. And they load into my truck too.

We have a Lowes coming next year, though what I've seen of them, I'm less than impressed. I've been to them a few times in the midwest, and they don't add/detract anything from a Home Depot. /shrug

Our experience with Home Depot has been much better than Lowe's. Friendlier staff, more knowledgeable (HAHAHAHHAHA), better organized, better selection. This store's selection has been pretty pitiful in certain areas though.

Of course, there isn't a Lowe's nearby here, so there is not much of a choice. Until I learn my way around and find some other stores, that is. Ace Hardware, WRU?!?!?!

*edit* I spell0rz gud!!

Oh geez, my experience with Ace Hardware is that it's absolute suckage.

I prefer to use a local hardware store when I can. Been in business for about 70 years. All I have to do is walk in, and say "Hey, where do you have XYZ?" Sure enough, someone will lead me right to it, and tell me which brand is better/cheaper, and why. Heck, sometimes they will even tell me I can save a few bucks on a particular item going somewhere else to get it.

Its one of those places where you still see the old guys in rocking chairs talking out front.

But neither HD or Lowes is that bad, IMHO.

There are two Home Depots in close driving distance from me. One of them is an absolute pit of stupidity, the other is a decent store where you get decent service. The guys at the decent store had to refer me to the stupid store to get an item that they were out of stock on. They felt so bad about it they called ahead and got the price reduced by about 25% for me.

Stupid store anecdote number 2: Last year More and I were looking for a very specific item for her step-dad for his birthday. We found it at the good HD, but the only one they has was the display so we asked them to check which stores in San Diego had it in stock. Sure enough, suck store has it so off we go. Get there and go to their power tool section and look for item, can't find it. Look for power tool person, can't find them. Go to service desk and explain we need help with power tools. They call someone, who never does show up. Eventually someone from lighting stumbles by and says they can't help us, but calls again. Twice is the charm and an actual tool person shows up and says "oh, we don't carry that." I explain that the computer says they have 4 of the item in stock. Guy says, "Oh, the computer never matches our real inventory. We don't use it that way." As I boggle and churn that statement over I look at the ceiling in frustration. Hey, is that a pallet full of the item I need on that top shelf right over your ****ing head you nitwit? Why yes, yes it is.

Whenever I encounter BS like that, I usually end up calling another one of their stores and asking for the corporate number, and then calling them and complaining. It's amazing how things seem to get better after that.

went all over the store trying to get someone to help me make some keys at a HD and I guess they were hiding like everyone else. I went to the machine, matched up the keys I needed and made the copies myself.

The machine was pretty simple: find the key you need, it referenced a cutting block. put the key and the copy into the block and insert it into the machine.. . push start.

paid for them and left. (probably could have pocketed them and walk out the door)

Folks, this is a rant! Where's the rant!