Helped my dad swap a toilet flange on Saturday and it changed how I think about plumbing

He showed me how a $8 wax ring from Ace Hardware does the same job as the $25 one I bought at Lowe's last month. Then he said 'most of this stuff is just plastic and rubber, don't overthink it.' Has anyone else found a cheaper part that worked just as well as the expensive version?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrew9167d ago

Dude 100% this. I used a $6 toilet rebuild kit from Home Depot last week instead of the $30 Fluidmaster one and it worked perfectly fine. My dad would be proud haha.

pat_hall876d ago

Gotta agree with you there man. I did the same thing with my kitchen faucet last month - the brand name cartridge was like $25 and the no-name one was $8. Still works perfect, no drips, nothing. The big brands just slap their name on the same plastic parts from the same factory in China. It's wild how much markup they get away with just because people are scared to try something cheaper. My neighbor's been using a $3 toilet flapper from the hardware store for like 3 years now with zero issues. Save your money where you can, these companies don't care about you anyway.

elizabeth_gonzalez5d ago

It's funny how that pattern shows up everywhere once you start looking. Like I noticed it with light bulbs too, the generic store brand ones cost half as much as the name brand and they're literally made in the same factory in some cases. Same thing with those air filters for your furnace, the cheap ones work just as good as the expensive ones as long as you change them regularly. It's like companies just count on people being too nervous to try the cheaper option and honestly they're probably right about most folks. My brother's been using off-brand phone chargers for years and never had a single issue, but some people swear they'll explode if it's not the official one.