Copper pipe fitting price rant

supply and demand not a lot of people sweating copper anymore

try a hardware store, might be better. i seem to remember home depot's pricing on commodity copper fittings was insane when i put my boiler in in 2019.

Please by all means manufacture a less expensive fitting and sell it to all of us, I'm sure you will find a way to be very profitable with no profit margin, and I am sure you will be able to keep these on your shelf in each town for our needs 1 at a time, it's also really lucky that it costs no money to keep a store open for our shopping enjoyment.

my local ACE Hardware sells this fitting for $9.59. The variable pricing at big boxes make some things really expensive.

I find the local GPS has better prices than Home Depot on this sort of thing.

For what it's worth, Supplyhouse prices we're always the same or lower than local supply houses. Not anymore. Some things yes and some things not. McDonald Miller prices are insane. And not in a good way. They are still the best game in town, but they have dropped off considerably since covid. In terms of prices, in terms of delivery time and stock......

It's free shipping from supplyhouse if your order is $100 or more. Otherwise it's a very reasonable price, usually like $5 but I'm in NJ where I think they have several warehouses

I assume the local tavern is selling prepared food and not raw meat?

We all have different situations. Supplyhouse and even HD are good for my needs at 9pm. I don't know anyone's family and they don't know mine. I don't get looked at funny when I walk in and dare to ask for a product. I get credit from MasterCard. I can download and read every product's datasheet and instructions at my leisure.

Free shipping, lower price, and other perks if you are on the Trademaster program. A licensed pro.

@_big_ said:

The above mentioned ACE has the best nuts and bolts assortment in town. Very pricey, but I understand its expensive to maintain the assortment. I usually find what I'm looking for and walk out somewhat lighter in the wallet, but satisfied nonetheless. A couple years ago, I did a project that required large quantities of nuts and bolts. I intentionally bought them from the ACE for the service as well as supporting their efforts to maintain the nuts and bolts section.

Our nearest ACE (next town over) just expanded a very impressive section of nuts, bolts, roll pins, Heim joints, you name it…it blows away the meager selection at Home Depot. I just found a special bolt there that I never would have found at HD.

I don't understand how Home Depot, with their vast floor space, can't devote more shelf space to "nuts and bolts" stuff like this, while a small ACE hardware store with less than 10% of their inventory can.

I'm pretty sure ACE needs to make a profit, too, and usually the bigger store carries a bigger selection of a given product category, so I still don't see the logic.

Let's all just get away from this capitalistic system of economy.  Socialism is the best for everyone.

Oops wrong forum.

$13.81 at Lowes. Still pricey. Pro press fittings are worth it for the time they save. and lack of an open flame. But you have to do a lot of plumbing to make the press worthwhile. HD sells viega fittings which is convenient. I see a lot of trades at Lowes and HD. Heck, they even have "pro" parking spots.

i feel that about stores in general. especially since they somehow always seem to be out of several of the items on my list.

I find Ace to be a good place for nuts, bolts screws at least if your buying in small quantities they have a good selection.

I was stuck on a job out of town and something broke on the pipe machine . From being constantly being banged around and abused the foot pedal came apart and the spring was gone and all the 1/4"-20 screws were stripped out.

I went to the local Ace hardware and found a spring (had to cut it down) some 5/16 bolts and a 1/4" drill bit and a 5/16 tap and drilled the bolt holes out and tapped them to the larger size.

Box stores? Like Uline? :)