LDTTDRS

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Special Ordering Warning

We all know Home Depot claims to beat anybody's Price bY 5Vo on lumber products, but there seems to be no bottom.

Claiming its lumber sales amount to only llVo ofits overall business, its personnel is instructed to take the lumber portion of orders at a substantial loss in the hope ofrecovering that loss on other items on the order.

We haye recently exposed its Practice of selling "special-order items" at cost from certain vendors who still continue to support Home DePot's efforts to put us all out of business! Remember, there is no middle ground. If a vendor sells to Home Depot on an ongoing basis, either directly or through distribution, he has committed his future business to the Big Box. Why? Because if they succeed, we, the independents, will no longer exist.

Educate your counter personnel on this practice, and remember, the Home Depot isn't always the cheapest.

Ben Cassinerio

Diablo Timber Box 3690 Napa, Ca.94558

Redwood Revisted

Several of our members have commented unfavorably on the story in the October issue, "The Lowdown on Hardwood Decking" (Oct. p. 10), in which Don White of White Brothers is quoted, "Redwood is a wood of the past. It'll be hard to get in l0 years."

This just isn't true, and in the spirit of good will and continuing product education, I am enclosing a data sheet addressing the future availability of redwood.

As you will see when you look through this, redwood is the nation's (Please see page 76)