It was over a week ago, while my wife Victoria and I were in the laundry room, that we heard a dripping noise.  We followed the sound, which took us to water coming out of the ceiling.  Tracing the source, it turned out to be that noisy dishwasher we had talked about replacing.

So, off to Lowes we went.  When our refrigerator had suddenly died, we shopped around and Lowes was the hero.  They had the same fridge Sears was offering at hundreds of dollars less.  Done deal.

However, this time, our Lowes experience was less than stellar.  We went to our regular store a few blocks away and found their appliance section swamped.  It took two trips to the front, asking for additional help in appliances before we finally had someone to guide us through the process.

Again, nice guy, but slow.  He also seemed to know what he was talking about, but when the installation guy showed up to put in the dishwasher and it didn’t fit, it gave me second thoughts.  Our entire process from “Whaddya got?” to filling out the paperwork and “See ya later” was around an hour.

But as you read, a week later when the installation guy came out to tell me that it wouldn’t fit without a plumber coming in at an additional cost, we still didn’t have a dishwasher and had to make one more trip to Lowes to pick out a different one. That night, we were given a choice of one.  We were told that it was the only one that would fit and it would take perhaps 16 days to arrive.  Then, after it arrived, an installer would come out and install at his convenience.  Bottom line, from broken to new dishwasher, we were looking at around 5 weeks.

Really?  In this day and age?

Lowes, you had us.  We wanted to be regular customers and make you our go-to store.  But just to be sure that there wasn’t something better over at Home Depot, we wandered down the street.

From the time we walked in to the time we walked out: around 20-minutes.  We bought it, the one we wanted was in-stock, they could install it as soon as this Friday or Saturday, the installation fee was $20 less than Lowes, the extended 4-year-warranty was $50 less than Lowes and we’ll have a new dishwasher this weekend instead of waiting until August.

Did I mention I went back to Lowes to get a refund and they credited me for labor, but said they didn’t have a record of the dishwasher being returned, so I would have to wait for that.  How long?  We’ll find out.

I had been with Lowes for a long time.  Since back when they were Eagle Hardware. But it looks like this guy is going to make the switch to the folks with the orange aprons.  I can do it.  They can help.

Tim Hunter