lowes
A reader wants to know why Lowes advertises and sells gallons of house
paint that aren't full gallons.
Their website says the cans are "1-Gallon." Their receipts describe them as 1 gallon cans of paint. Even the stickers they print out and place on the lids say "One Gallon." But Brian notes that when he brought the paint home and really looked at the cans, "One of the labels read '116 Fluid Ounces; 3.43 liters', the second label read '126 Fluid Ounces; 3.725 Liters.'"
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fedex
John at Needcoffee.com writes that he's come to expect the occasional "damaged in transit"
theft of items from packages he ships or receives, at least through the U.S Postal Service. With private carriers, however, he notes that he's always had better luck. But last week he opened a box of DVDs shipped to him via FedEx to discover
a rusty can of $5 house paint.
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state farm
Humphrmi's 1963 Chrysler Newport has antique license plates, meaning he can't drive to or from anywhere other than car shows, shops and parades; but State Farm won't insure the car as an antique unless it gets a new coat of paint. "You have to paint the car," they said, to avoid a 33% higher premium. Does this strike anyone else as insane?
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3m
Reader Mike is confused by this 3M Latex
Paint and Odor Respirator with Valve. The front of the package lists "disposable aerosol spray paint cans" as something the mask "helps provide relief" from. However, the instructions seem to say that you shouldn't use it with paint spray. What should he do?
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home improvement
Our friends at
Consumer Reports tell us that even though the price of exterior paints and stains has gone up a few dollars per gallon on average from last year (due to price hikes for many of the petrochemicals that go into paint), big box stores are keeping consumers isolated from manufacturers who would
love to be passing on those added costs. It may be tempting to cut costs by buying a lower quality product, but CR warns against using crappy paint. Specifically, CR suggested Behr (sold at Home Depot), Valspar (Lowe’s), and Kilz (Wal-Mart) as competitively priced paints that "ranked among the top performers."
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recalls
It's been one hell of a morning for RC2. The manufacturer of the infamous lead-tainted Thomas & Friends toys is recalling a feeding chair that 12 kids have managed to use as a launch platform and a "Winnie-the-Pooh" potty-training chair that's tainted with lead. Funnily enough, only the orange paint used on the "Winne-the-Pooh" plaque is tainted.
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cars
We've been hounding a paint store in
Colorado to fix a customer's car like they said they would. After numerous delays, Fred's crazy-painted car may be looking normal soon.
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paint
Need some paint for your garage, basement or perhaps the bedroom of an unfavored child? Don't care about the color? Great! Curbly suggests you try buying paint leftover from mistakes in the mixing process at your local hardware store or:
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car
Superstar intern Dyan got hold of the manager of Dale's Paints and asked when they planned on getting Fred's car repainted.
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diy
Thinking about painting a room in your house, but aren't sure what it will look like? Curbly points the way to Benjamin Moore's website, where there is a truly nifty tool for previewing paint colors. You can choose sample rooms that are similar to yours, or for 10 bucks, upload pictures of your actual room.
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complaints
A Sherwin-Willams' store incompetence totally messed up Fred's car. Look at that
hood front quarter and nose fascia..
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paint
Unbelievably, this Camaro was painted not by Maaco, but by $50 worth of house paint, a coat of Rustoleum and a cheap roller. We hesitate actually recommending taking a bucket of red house paint to your new Porsche, but then again, if you can afford a Porsche, you probably wouldn't be tempted to.
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rental
From 'Saralegal,' the girl with the best lawyer-to-be nickname ever:
Here is my tragic tale of woe from an apartment in Baltimore, MD.
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Consumerist
Use this calculator to figure out just how much paint you need for your room. [MyHomeIdeas.com via Lifehacker]
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chinese poison train
