Home Services at The Home Depot - Keene, NH

This review isn’t about the store, the people there are great. This is about the sub contracted services Home Depot offers. We went to the Keene Home Depot to talk to someone about replacing our tankless hot water heater that died on us. The lady behind the service desk was great, she entered all the info needed and gave us a print out saying that someone would contact us within 48 hours. Here it is 5 days later and NO ONE has contacted us about replacing our hot water heater....we have no hot water...it’s not like we were seeing what was out there and we were going to upgrade...we needed service ASAP. We still have no received a call from anyone and frankly I don’t we will, which is fine because in the meantime, we ended up calling a local plumber who was more than happy to come over at 8:30PM to assess our problem, he will now be getting the (probably close to) $3000 job.

Do not use their contracting services if you want something fixed or replaced.

I easily spend $10,000 plus per year at various Home Depots. The Keene Home Depot is generally in the bottom to middle of the Home Depots that I go to: Merrimack, Nashua, Manchester, Londonderry, and Hooksett. Manchester is by far the best for staff, inventory, delivery and general helpfulness. A friend visiting from RI even mentioned that the Manchester HD was so much better than his Home Depots in MA & RI. This Home Depot has staffing issues regarding a lack of customer service skills. I tried to order kitchen countertops and a granite countertop, after waiting patiently for the kitchen designer to finish with other customers for 30-45 minutes she told me to come back tomorrow because she had too many other things to do. I had asked the staff for assistance and they had directed me to her. No where in the process of me waiting did she say anything like I'm not going to be able to get to you today while I was waiting. She was probably just hoping that I would go away. I renovate 2-3 kitchens a year and have never had that experience at a Home Depot before when trying to order cabinets. She told me to call to set an appointment, but I live over an hour away and was trying to combine trips to get things done. I told her never mind I would just go to the Manchester store tomorrow and at that point she half-heartedly gave me a card. I can't imagine why she would think that I would go back to her (each store gets credit for their sales). You can order at any store and have it delivered to Keene. I have had poor quality issues on doors which was not the store's fault since they likely come from China. I had an issue with the flooring department charging a re-stocking fee that was not disclosed. I have had many delivery issues with the Keene Home Depot including that they forgot part of the order which then resulted in me being charged a separate delivery charge (hamshaw's lumber in Keene doesn't do this, they deliver for free and charge less on drywall etc) HD Management did eventually refund the second delivery charge. The straw that broke the camel's back was the tool rental department. Aside from the policy that you are liable for the machine breaking during general use without paying extra fees not shown in the advertised price ("insurance" as they call it even though it's normal wear and tear on heavily used machines). I called to ask about the price, specs/usage, hours of availability and cost of a tool. All general questions. I was just about to get off the phone and the man in the tool department said "look I've got people standing in front of me, you either need to come down here and look at it yourself or I'm putting you on hold." Completely unnecessary for him to say, it was only a couple of minute phone conversation and he was not the only person on the phone. I have rented tools from them several times. It is not a quick process and last time it probably took them 15 minutes even with no one in front of me. He probably just wanted to go on break or something. I have spent years working with clients and would never dream of saying something like that. He could have more gently said, there are several people waiting for me, were there any final questions that I could answer for you before I help the next customer?" Those collective experiences plus the tool rental experience are the reason for the 1-star rating. I wish I could pay for the tool rental at a different store. Order from a different Home Depot and have it delivered. Or a different store like hamshaw's lumber in keene (who carried basic custom sized doors that Home Depot did not)