B & Q (Shop)

I have a confession to make here I am a B & Q addict! I simply love shopping in a store which offers me such a wide variety of home and garden products. Although having written this opinion I'm starting to wonder why….

~~~ Helpful Staff ~~~
Every time I visit the staff are friendly and helpful. They have experts who can give you advice on your project and the building man helped me to work out all the materials I would need to build a patio. This is a free service and expert advice like this can be invaluable. Especially as the Warehouse prices can be cheaper than your local builders merchant. They don't even give me that "a woman shouldn't be doing this" look.

That’s when you can find a member of staff to help you though. More often than not you are left fruitlessly searching for a red aproned staff member or worse queuing up at customer services to get them to page someone. Go there for advise about any DIY product and you will get it free of charge and with a smile. You might just have to wait half an hour until a staff member appears.

~~~ How To Leaflets ~~~
My dear husband Dave is not much of a handyman. Still that’s not too much of a problem as I can turn my hand to most things – and I love power tools! B & Q offer a range of how-to leaflets giving easy to understand step by step instructions on various projects. These come in a really wide range and also include garden projects, I picked one up today on lawn care.

~~~ Bargains ~~~
Well my regular readers know I'm a bargain lover and B & Q have given me some gems. Last January I bought all new Christmas tree lights (and some candles – sorry Dave!) all for under half the original price. Upstairs I have some of their value corner shelves in a spare bedroom, these come in plain unvarnished wood and in three sizes with the prices starting at £1.98. I spray painted these silver and they look great. I also often buy cheap plants from what I call the "half dead" section, out in the garden centre there is always a rack of poorly looking plants which are marked down, take them home and give them a good watering and they always perk up.

~~~ Range ~~~
I generally find that the B & Q range is sufficient for all my DIY needs. Some products are only stocked in their bigger Warehouse stores though so its worth traveling further afield to get the real scope of products. As I mentioned in my bargains section they do an excellent value range for anyone looking for something cheap and cheerful. There are even value power tools available which are ideal when you first buy a house and suddenly find you need lots of things. I would point out though that often their garden centre leaves a lot to be desired, today for example they had a few heathers, about 4 trays of very sad looking winter pansies and some price reduced chrysanthemums. Just yesterday I was at a real garden centre and they certainly had plenty of winter flowering plants.

~~~ Pack Up & Go ~~~
B&Q warehouses offer a service where you can hire a van to take your goods home. When I recently purchased fence panels I was told that delivery would be £20 and take two weeks. For £10 I could hire their van for an hour and it was available the next day (Saturday) any time from 1pm.

The deal is you have the van for 1 hour and leave a £30 deposit. Your hour starts once you have loaded the van and if you are late back it will cost you another £50, which is fair enough as it is booked solid. You can hire it for 2 hour if you need which is just an extra £10. This is quick and convenient and the van I got was less than 6 months old. Even if the delivery had been available sooner it would have cost more and they never give you an exact time. With me driving I was able to arrange for my neighbor to be on hand to help with unloading without inconveniencing him too much. The only problem with this service is that the vans get thrashed by customers. The one I had was only 6 months old but would not go into fifth gear, I thrashed it at 70mph all the way home in fourth! I liked being white van (wo)man though.

~~~ Customer Services ~~~
A big problem for B & Q I believe. Whenever I visit the warehouse there is always a huge queue at the customer services desk. I did have a problem with them once refusing me a refund of a deposit I had paid on some sand bags, apparently in the year I had the bags they stopped charging deposits. I was at fault for not having the receipt but I still don't believe that after 11 months they couldn't look up my details from when I had them delivered (you don't pick up ton bags of sand yourself!). I complained to head office and got a cheque for £50, I got a copy of the credit card receipt and got a credit note for the £40 they owed me as well! I do think that offering credit notes is a bit poor though, there were a number of people returning goods who were not happy about this.

~~~ The Bottom Line ~~~
Call me sad but my favourite place to visit on a Bank Holiday weekend is B & Q (yes I know I'm a sad cow!). They have their faults but they also have the products I need, and can give me inspiration for my home improvements. Poor old Dave doesn't like them much though, he cringes when I mention I'm off there as he knows the credit card will get a hammering (daft sod is still wondering why I needed Christmas tree lights in January – men eh?)