The Home Depot

Some of the most unhappy staff I’ve ever seen in a retail establishment. Not really sure what they’re so grumpy about. It’s not like they’re out on the sales floor helping customers. Ironically the customer service/​cash area seems to be popular with the staff. 5 or 6 people in one spot? Really?

I can’t say enough about the staff at this HD! I had a little project I was working on and needed to buy some wood and have it cut to my dimensions. I wasn’t quite sure of the type of wood I needed. I had never done anything like this before and it was just an idea I had. Anyway… I was fortunate enough to speak with Mike in lumber. He advised me on the best type of wood along with suggesting the most economical way to do it. He even loaded it into my car. While he was cutting the wood I went to look for some other hardware and every employee I talked to was polite and hopeful. I will definitely be back to this store. Well done Home Depot!

Horrible and rude. There wasnt anyone on the floor to assist. However when I finally found someone, he kept talking and yacking with a guy that clearly didnt have his ideas organized. Foolisihly I waited Think he could have multi-​tasked?
Its a training issue for sure. The email I sent complaining about it was never answered.

This home depot is much smaller than most and that’s what makes it good, it feels local and less big box which I am thankful for. The service if you can find someone is good, but the key is finding someone. I by a lot of appliances here for properties that I manage and the service in store is always good. I like that the same staff have been here for years and they get to know you. The only problem I have is the company they use for installations, they are called Quick Install. My oh my, what a scam those characters. When I have a minute, I will come back and tell you all about it, right now I have to run to work. Check back if you want to hear.

The customer service at this location is really fantastic. We bought some kitchen appliances here after a very negative experience with Canadian Appliance Source. We were helped by Deborah who was friendly, HONEST, knowledgable and not pushy at all. She also managed to help us save some extra cash, which was nice.
Every time we have gone here (rent a carpet cleaner, buy paint or building supplies, ask for help) the staff has been really great.

I’ve always found the staff at this location to be knowledgeable and helpful. The store is bigger than you might expect being attached to a mall, and the location (Gerrard and Pape) is pretty urban for a big box store.
I’ve been to quite a few HDs, and this one is by far my favourite.

This Home Depot location is fairly standard as far as Home Depot is concerned.
I like that it’s in the mall — so I can not only shop at Home Depot, but also check out the other stores that Gerrard Square has to offer. However, while they’ve made clear attempts to revitalize the place, it appears that you can’t take the «Gerrard Square» out of Gerrard Square. The mall still has a downmarket feel. It starts when you exit Home Depot and inhale the stench of the food court. but now I’m writing a review of Gerrard Square.
This store is a bit tricky to get in and out of. The streets around it are busy, and there’s a bit of a bottleneck getting in. However, once you get back there, there is a parking garage with enough space.
The staff are reasonably helpful here. They generally have what I’m looking for. They lose points for showing items in stock on their website that are not actually in stock when I get to the store. The employees at the store explained to me that the inventory system which operates the website is different than the inventory system at the store. That’s just stupid.
I’d also prefer it if they allowed dogs here, like Canadian Tire does.

It’s the staff. Any of whom I’ve had to ask assistance has always done their best to help. What more can you ask for. Canadian service (and I’m a Canadian) generally falls way short of what you see when you phone or go to an American store. This Home Depot is the exception. You can always find staff — and they are polite and friendly.
Perhaps they don’t have everything the larger Home Depots have — but they cover all the most needed items bases and then some. Glad they are in the neighbourhood.
Pat

I have been to this location a few times in the last few years. The staff have always been helpful in finding what I need. I once bought wood siding to fix my end table. and to cover the squares for my Ikea CD tower. I still haven’t done it! ha! But I found what I was looking for! ha!
So I was there yesterday looking for the clippy things to hold the shelf in my armoire and voila this older gentleman was just putting on his apron and overheard me and said: «Come on dear, I’ll help you find it!» We went down the aisle and he went straight to the spot that holds all these different sizes, styles and colours of clippy things. He found the right one that I needed and pointed me in the direction for wood boards and said the ‘young’ fella would help me out! I love this guy!
So the ‘young’ fella did help me find what I needed for making 4 new shelves in my linen closet. He was impressed that I could do all these things on my own! So we ended up going with 2 MDF boards and he took me over to the ‘saw’ guy and said: the first 3 cuts are free! He was very sweet.
The ‘saw’ guy got my boards cut in exactly 3 cuts so I wouldn’t have to pay extra! How awesome is he!!!
2 boards, one bag of clippy things = $ 21. A coat of paint and I can finally unpack my linen closet!

This Home Depot feels much smaller than the ones sprawled outside the Toronto core. To give you an idea, it’s inside a mall. For this reason, it is super accessible via ttc. That’s a bonus.
I went because I was searching for clamp on lights for my newly bought vanity/​dressing table. The first associate I encountered in the lights department was gruff mcgruff. When I told him what I was looking for given what I had, he recommended I bring an electrician to set up a light fixture on the wall. Talk about not listening! He was not open to any suggestions or to think outside of the box to find me a solution.
I did find the clamp lights though and was about to figure out what type of light bulbs to get when I noticed the change in shift and 2 other associates came to the floor. An extremely old and physically stiff gentleman and a younger, bearded, Jesus type hipster. The older gentleman asked if I needed help. For a moment, I did hesitate but I thought, different person. I started to explain I needed lights for my dressing table to help me apply make-​up and what type of lightbulbs would he recommend. He had the most vacant look as a spoke!
But then, the bearded Jesus type came to the rescue! He stepped up and said he was a new media graduate and did photography and could help me select the right lightbulbs for my endeavour! And he actually delivered! He was friendly, personable and you can tell he felt good helping me find what I was looking for.
Home Depot can benefit from hiring associates who don’t fit the mold of gruff handyman, but rather people who come from different but complementary backgrounds to assist buyers who clearly are not home builders/​re-​modelers. It’s evident that Home Depot also wants to target people like me, even if we may make a comparatively smaller % of sales.
At any rate, I was super lucky to have come on the day I did at the time I did and that the bearded Jesus type was there to help me.

Just when you think a visit to a Home Depot couldn’t get any worse, I recently visited this one and it just made my blood boil!
It’s the closest Home Depot to downtown Toronto, but still a good distance.
Getting there was a bit of a challenge, as it is not a stand alone big box store. It is a buried in a small inner city mall and there isn’t big sign on the street to mark its presense — I wasn’t familiar with the area so it made things more complicated. I drove by the place a couple times to actually find it and to get to it you have to navigate through a couple driveways and parking lots to actually get to it. There isn’t much parking there and the entrance bottlenecks through a narrow covered parking area which happens to be near the entrance/​loading area, so be patient as the traffic could be awful.
This Home Depot is much, much smaller than your typical Home Depot store — I’d say about a third of the size, and not organized like one either, so you will be spending a lot of time finding stuff on your shopping list, if you can find it at all. It feels more like an aging Canadian Tire store.
I had a lengthly list and even with a help of a employee there, I could only get half the stuff I need.
Like any Home Depot, you have a store of not so intelligent staff trying to help the hoardes of even less intelligent customers. The combination of being under staffed and the amount of following customers who have the habit of asking way too many stupid questions makes you wonder why no one has gone postal at a Home Depot yet. This is not a place to go to if you need a simple question asked.
My visit here was a waste of time and the next day I went to another Home Depot to finish off my shopping. Lucky I didn’t need anything urgently or else I would be extremely frustrated and mad.
If you live downtown and need to get to a Home Depot, your best bet would be the one on St. Clair Ave. W. Over there you also have a Rona and Canadian Tire as a back up plan.

I go to the Gerrard St. location because it is near my house and convenient. They promote how awesome their customer service is but this location has horrible service. It is in a cramped space that is much smaller than most Home Depots and the maze like feel adds to the frustration when trying to find an attendant. Thankfully I’ve got to know this store and know my way around it.
Go there for convenience, but hit up a Lowe’s for better prices.

So the manager never contacted me about my horrible experiences at the Gerrard Square Home Depot. You deserve no stars Gerrard Square Home Depot. Save yourself the trouble and go to the North York location or the Scarborough location.

This Home Depot is not your parents Home Depot (assuming your parents live in the suburbs that is), as it’s not a massive warehouse in a power centre where the next closest hardware store is the Rona across the parking lot or the Canadian Tire across the 6 lane thoroughfare. In fact this HD connects internally to a mall (Gerrard Sqaure). So right from the get-​go you need to go there with the understanding that they won’t have absolutely everything you’ve come to expect from HD.
As far as downtown TO goes it’s about as good as you’re going to get though. I can’t really comment on the prices because I’m not a contractor, but they seem to be decent and there are always a lot of tradespeople in there, so I would assume that constitutes some level of endorsement.
I have found the staff to be generally helpful and easy to find. Though I will say that they don’t seem to have the hiring standards that other HD’s (i.e., my parent’s HD) have. For example, it doesn’t appear that the staff members are a bunch of semi-​retired tradespeople who know a lifetime more about my project than I could ever know.

This is as close to downtown as you can get for a big box hardware store. It’s not as massive as it’s stand-​alone counterparts in the suburbs but it has waaaaaay more than any of the Home Hardware stores scattered around the city’s core.
Any time I’ve come here I’ve had great service. I’ve been able to find someone easily in a near-​by aisle and they’ve always been knowledgeable and able to help.

«You can do it. We can help.»
«…if we’re not on break.»
I’ve gone to this Home Depot three times in the past few weeks on the hunt for a lightbulb, and each time the girl who works in that department is «just about to come back from break.» I swear she is always on break. Ten, fifteen minutes go by and there’s still no sign of her. And why can’t the other clerks help me? Because I guess they’re just as confused about the damn bulbs as I am. I’ve stared blankly at the wall of bulbs, my expired one in hand for reference (which BTW is of no help as it looks the same as about 10 others), along with the other defeated-​looking customers, who are all «why can’t I just pick out a damn bulb?!»
How hard could picking out a lightbulb be? Apparently very, because whoever manufactures them has come up with all sorts of clever schemes to confuse the fuck out of customers. R19 base, R20 medium base, «standard» base, 11W, 60W, shallow groove, deep groove, luminescent, phosphorescent, incandescent, energy-​saving, CFL, CFC, etc. Then there are some bulbs that don’t have their base # listed. Ahhhhh. I just want to NOT work at my desk in total darkness please. I ended up buying ten different bulbs and I’m gonna hope one of them works. Now, who’s over 6’4 and available to come stand on a ladder and install them?
PS: The cashiers, on the other hand, are always smiling, pleasant and very helpful.

As my boyfriend runs his own construction business I have been in ALOT of Home Depot’s this was by far the worst. We had asked about a patio set that was on sale in the flyer to a girl at the door. She apparently knows nothing except how to hand out flyers. She was «trying» to find another associate, and managed to get one that was leaving or a plain clothes associate, anyways this broad wasn’t of much help either. Both pointed to the garden section and said there should be somebody there… my boyfriend walked back… nobody. Eventually he got fed up and we left. But on the way out I saw 3 or 4 associates standing together «spotting» a forklift… spotting in this case means talking with their backs to the forklift working.
I have been to may other Home Depots where there has been many asociates at my beckon call, even asking if we needed help. This was notttttt the case here. Kind of a let down.

This «urban» version of a Home Depot is good for quick stops and supply runs. They seem to stock a subset of what you’d find in the larger suburban locations.
At first I found the layout a little confusion since they tried to stuff a big box experience into a shopping mall space. The staff are decent and tend to be extra friendly at this location.
Just watch out for parking as it is pretty tight, especially if you need to load up with larger items.

This Home Depot has a pretty good selection of stuff, and a Tim Horton’s. What it doesn’t have is knowledgeable staff. The store motto is «you can do it: we can help», but they hire the people who don’t know the products they sell, and certainly can’t give renovation/​handy work advice.

Not being a home depot groupie, i cannot claim this location to be above or below the average home depot experience (if indeed one can call walking the isles of home depot an experience – not saying that it isnt, but lets assume that there are more mindblowing pastimes.) Now all that preamble aside, for the most part, anything I need is available there. This begins to change when I start looking for things to upkeep my 100 year old home. For things that are not necessarily the status quo in terms of hardware, youd be better served from a small local hardware store (not to mention feeling better for supporting a family owned business as opposed to some guys box at skydome or rogersdome or whatever its called these days…). Another potential snag comes up when you ask for help. Sometimes it seems that for the size of the store, they should have more employees to help you. Also, not all employees are that sociable/​helpful. They look like theyd rather take the hammer they need to restore to a shelf and find a new spot for it in the middle of your face. Some however, are quite helpful and patient. They seem to be pretty good about returns too — i gave an orbital sander back after a fair bit of use as it started to fall apart and there was no problem.