4 Home Depot Exclusives For Shoppers To Avoid

We don't recommend buying children at Home Depot, or really anywhere, as human trafficking is illegal and immoral. (photo: Patrick)

We don’t recommend buying children at Home Depot, or really anywhere, as human trafficking is illegal and immoral. (photo: Patrick)

While many of us go to stores like Home Depot for brands of tools, paint, flooring and other products that you could buy at other retailers, the Depot has several labels you won’t find elsewhere. Unfortunately, not all of these exclusive brands are worth the trip to the Despot.

Our colleagues at Consumer Reports have put together a Get It or Forget It review of several products — running the gamut from paper towels to lawn mowers to flooring to kitchen counters — that you can buy at Home Depot, and some of the items that made the “losers” list might surprise you.

1. Brinkmann grills

Home Depot’s economy line of grills may be designed to look like the pricier competition, but Consumer Reports says the cheaper store-brand Brinkmann grills from Home Depot have “so-so high and low heat performance.” The $400 Brinkmann Medallion 810-4580-SB scored the lowest in CR’s recent grill ratings.

2. Home Legend flooring

“We haven’t tested all the flooring materials sold at Home Depot, but we would advise you to think twice about several products from the exclusive Home Legend line,” writes CR.

The low-scoring Home Legend Lisbon Natural HL9311LN engineered wood floors were noted for their poor resistance to fading, denting, and scratching, and other products under the Home Legend label were far from the top of CR’s ratings.

3. HDX paper towels

Consumer Reports says the store-brand HDX paper towels struggled with both absorbency and strength, the two factors that make a paper towel worth buying. So you might save some money at the register, but you’ll probably just end up using a lot more of them.

4. Glidden paint

The Glidden exclusives at Home Depot — particularly the High Endurance and Duo lines — were dubbed “middle-of-the-pack at best” by CR testers, who found significant flaws in all their satin, flat, and semigloss formulas.

“Some Gliddens did a bit better, but if you’re paint shopping at the Home Depot, your best bet is to stick with Behr,” writes CR.

For the full list of Home Depot winners and losers, check out the story on the Consumer Reports website.

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