The Home Depot

After visiting this location for years, don’t bother expecting customer service that’s helpful or friendly at this Home Depot. I only come here when I know exactly what I want, and need it quickly due to its location.
This store is a prime example of why consumer trends are moving more towards online merchants instead.

Although the staff were initially super friendly and helpful, I still have to give a 1 star review because they convinced me to use their installation service. AVOID THEIR HOME INSTALLATION SERVICE LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!
The short story: The installer was incompetent & did a horrible job. (Google «Dunning-​Kruger effect» to get an idea of how bad the installer was) I’ve placed dozens of phone calls, never gotten a call back and now I’m left with a leaky shower door that looks like crap.
The long story:
I bought a shower door from Home Depot with the home delivery & installation service. I didn’t realize they would farm this out to
, which apparently is just a just a phone & email shell company in Ontario that farms out work to really bad regional contractors.
Right from the start there was a ton of confusion between the installer,
and Home Depot as to who was supposed to do the home delivery. The contractor keeps calling me asking «Have you got it yet? When do you want me to install it?» He insists he only does the installation. I had to make several calls to all parties and act as a middle man to eventually convince the installer that he was responsible for delivery.
Around a month after ordering, the shower door arrives at the Home Depot, the installer picks it up and comes by to install it. I takes him about three hours to do a 1.5 to 2 hour job (not that I had to pay by the hour). I left him alone for a while then went back up to see if he was done yet and he’s made little progress and he seems to be having difficulty figuring out how to assemble the shower door. He was repeatedly trying to install a plastic hinge cover on the outside of the door where there was nothing for it to attach to. I asked him to try the other side and it installed first try.
There were two similar brackets that mounted to the wall. He installed them so the logo & company name was upside down.
He installed some end caps incorrectly (they were swapped). It was incredibly obvious that they were crooked and some screw holes were on the wrong side. I had to insist that he swap them before he attempted to drill new holes into the brittle plastic caps.
When screwing the frame together, he didn’t follow the instructions to drill some pilot holes for the screws. Instead he just used his cordless drill (using the full torque drill setting) to force the screws into solid aluminum. On the third of six screws he snaps the head off the screw, then tries another and broke the head off it too. He finished off the rest using his own mismatched screws and threw out the covers that were supposed to go on the manufacturer-​supplied screws. His sloppiness left all the screws crooked and none of them are flush. I dug the screw covers out of the garbage to put on the two original screws, and discovered some «extra» pieces from a Bosch dishwasher he must have installed earlier for some other customer.
Finally, he caulks the inside of the shower door despite me telling him the instructions say to caulk the outside. Just looking at the sill at the bottom I can tell it doesn’t make any sense, but he insists this is the way it’s done for ALL shower doors. After waiting a couple of days to let the caulking cure, we try the shower. Any water hitting the door runs down into the sill, then encounters the caulking on the inside of the shower and has no place to go but outside. By the end of the shower, the mat and floor outside are soaking wet.
I try calling the contractor back requesting he fix things and he says additional work is outside the scope of work and he’d have to charge me extra!!! So much for the one year warranty on workmanship that shows up on my invoice! I tell him the reason the shower leaks is because he didn’t follow the instructions properly and he says «Instructions are just a reference no writing in stone» (his words exactly) I call the manufacturer and they say to fix things, remove the caulking and do it again as per the instructions.
Over the past month, I’ve tried calling multiple times to get QuickContractors to fix their screw up. They’re polite and assure me someone else will call to arrange the repair but no one ever calls back or follows up. After one call (of me calling them) they sent out an inspector that confirms the problems and he says that someone would be calling to book a time to fix it. No calls & nothing happens again.
I tried calling Home Depot too. Apparently Jeanie, who was quite helpful earlier, no longer works there so I was asked for my name & number and I was supposed to get a call back but never did.
If you do buy something from Home Depot, install it yourself or hire your own contractor to install it. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief!

As the other reviewers mention, this is a central (ish) located HD, which sacrifices some stock selection and department floor staff. Four points heretofore unmentioned though:
— Underground parking. The only HD with it in town I think. Especially useful in the dead of winter when loading a shwack of stuff into your vehicle.
— Smaller location = less customers = better tool rental availability
— While fairly central, this location is less convenient than the Chinook HD in terms of lugging distance to the C-​Train station
— Checkout is usually a breeze since they put in self-​service, but if there is a queue (or you’re a Luddite), head over to the contractor cashier in the NE corner of the building. It’ll just be you and the crickets…

This Home Depot seems to be better than most. The people there are friendly and helpful (if you can find them). They would get 5-​stars if they could have more people on the floor.
We had to get our paint matched and they were able to do it even though what we handed them looked like small flakes a cat would’ve peeled off.

Cool: This place is HUGE for how central it is. Live in the area and need supplies to make shelves for your garage and traction sand so you can safely walk it to your garage because all of Calgary is an icy death trap? They’ve got you covered.
Less Cool: It’s large for how how central it is, but it’s small as far as Home Depot’s are concerned. They often seem to be missing a lot of common place stuff… like the correct PVC piping to make a truck-​mounted potato cannon. I’m joking, but I do often go home empty handed when looking for toilet parts, stairwell parts, and I still don’t have a truck mounted potato cannon.
Cool: The staff are mostly very friendly and knowledgable…
Less Cool: …If you can find them. You can wander lost in that warehouse for a long time without coming across and employee to help you out. Sometimes they’ll just point you in a direction. Be careful, as soon as you turn your back, Home Depot employees are able to turn invisible at so much as a blink and you won’t find them again.
Cool: They always have enough cashiers and I don’t have to wait in gigantic Safeway style line ups.
Less Cool: There is no less cool. Thanks for having enough cashiers to move the customers through. Well done Home Depot!

I’ve been to this location a half a dozen time and I’ve always received good service. What motivates me to review them on Unilocal is my experience a few weeks ago. I spent over 2 hours with one staff member ordering blinds for my home. She was helpful, patient, and friendly. A couple days later, after I had paid for my order, she called me to let me know of an option that would save me some money. She absolutely didn’t have to do that. I think people who obviously love their jobs and do them well deserve 5 stars, so here they are.

I always have a hard time admitting my crushes, but I’m totally digging on Home Depot right now. I love that all I have to do is hop up 14^th street, swing a left, and I can wander the aisles full of tools. I think I was a carpenter in a past life.
I’ve been eyeing up Dremels online for the past year or so, ever since an ex-​coworker mentioned to me that he had one to carve out words and designs in rock. Home Depot was my stop yesterday to finally pick one up. I started out by looking at the categories for each aisle to figure out where I was going to find my new rotating friend. It didn’t take long for a staff member passing by to stop and ask me if I needed help finding anything. «Yeah, actually, I’m trying to find a Dremel.» «Dremel? Sure! You should find them in Aisle 6.» Aisle 6 is exactly where I found them.
Next stop, flooring. I figured some slate tiles would do me well. With the large signage in the store, it wasn’t hard to figure out what direction to head in. On my way to the back of the store, two other associates gave me a smile and asked if I was finding everything I needed. Note to self: Always hit up Home Depot early on a Thursday afternoon.
Last stop– it’s time to pay. I walked upto a till and was greeted with a friendly smile: «Would you like a bag for these or will you be okay without one?» I went without, but I appreciated the ask.
On other Home Depot visits, I’ve had less help, especially when the store is busier. But even so, the aisles are always neat, products are always arranged in a way that’s easy to find and on the right pegs, and I have yet to encounter an employee on the floor and at the cash registers and self-​serve kiosks who wasn’t anything but pleasant.
Thanks for being easy to crush on Home Depot, I’ll be back again soon :).

urban concept big box store that is LEED silver? well, ya gotta start somewhere, right?
props to putting the parking underground.
i’d like to see more of these. maybe one that has a real (platinum) LEED rating and is directly tied to resi, foot traffic, and mass transit?

I’m not sure where some got the idea to take a home depot and make it mini BUT central, because it wasn’t a very good one. Yeah, it’s on 16^th avenue, just outside of downtown. But it is small enough (for home depot) that they had to cut down on selection, staff and whole sections! I’ve always just thought of Home Depot as the one stop renovation shop, but instead it was a pain in the butt because we had to drive out to a bigger home depot ANYWAYS.
It was also ridiculously difficult to track down the appropriate staff members of some sections. It was like playing hide and seek, which I really didn’t appreciate. Unlike some people I know, I don’t get off on shopping at the Home Depot. I get what I need and get out (the only known instance in shopping that this has ever applied to me). Definitely not going back to this location again.

These guys were actually very helpful the two times I’ve been in. The store is ridiculously huge, but yet they don’t sell barbecue charcoal. It doesn’t make sense when you think about it. But maybe they need more room for the latest toilet models or the new line of 2009 bathtubs.
In any case, the guy did try to help me find the charcoal.
The other time, they were quite helpful in finding me a toilet plunger. I didn’t see them while walking around because they don’t actually come assembled these days. You have to buy the rubber plunger bottom separate from the wooden stick part and assemble them at home. Why do they do this? I just hope the savings are passed on to us, the consumers, for having to put together a toilet plunger in our spare time…
Anyway, I do like this Home Depot and their staff impressed me. But if I was the boss, I’d get some of the kids working there to assemble the plungers when they’ve got nothing else to do…