You can try and do it, when you
B&Q it!
Then pay a builder...
Those guys are absolute asscrackers down there. Experts and trade specialists..... me arse! The prices are astronomical compared to a lot of the
genuine trade places, who'll also sell to the public.
I once spent 15 minutes none stop discussing the intricacies of spray paint with one of the stupid slags to get my £5 back, after it wrinkled with
48h's worth of drying time. The discussion was basically "I'm that kind of customer who's not pissing off until he has his money back".
My mum bought a kitchen from there just recently. About £100 and five different packs of hinges later, she still don't have the right one for the
remaining two doors. I was down there with her to destress the process, after they scanned her card three times and she ended up being billed for
£10k+ in 3 minutes, with the bank on the phone and me wondering if the checkout woman was attempting to rip the card off.
ANYWAY.
B&Q recently stopped carrying concentrated sulphuric, as I'm aware of things (or are in the process of phasing it out), after another stupid slag
poured a bottle of it down the sink to unblock it, then had a good long gaze down the plug hole as it started to crackle and boil. It did boil,
quickly (thermally ran away), and sprayed the now hot, concentrated, acidic contents of the u-bend back into her face. Thermally and chemically
burning her face into a horror film.
It does say on the pack not to do that kind of thing, and the guys who made it, when questioned, said "it does say don't do that on the pack". But
alas, B&Q can do without 3rd degree burns victims mentioning it's name.
They do still sell sodium hydroxide pellets / flakes, which they ID'd me for. They ID'd me for the spray paint too.
As usual, if you pay more for the stuff in the colourful pack, they'll water it down for you and charge you some extra for the privilege.
I'll usually spend absolutely ages in there playing with everything and reading the backs of the packs. In a one of my long trolling endeavors, I
checked out every bottle that looked remotely like a semi-pure chemical. The hydrochloric (what remains of it, as they're now switching to surfactants
and other things) has surfactants and soaps in it. Which help it clean the drive better, but also make it a pain in the ass to purify. And, if you're
using it with surfactant in it, you deserve what it's going to do to your results. 
They used to sell pure sodium chlorate as a "kill EVERYTHING on my drive" herbicide. Which does work quite nicely for keeping all the weeds and grass
from poking through the paving. I think that's disappeared as well. When I bought it, they had a mountain of it piled up on special offer, so they may
have been trying to get rid of it.
It's only worth buying things from B&Q if you're going to shoplift them.
There are tons of places like Screwfix, or my personal Mecca, Toolstation.com that will DESTROY B&Q on prices, service, stocking, delivery and
components. I got copies of catalogues from lots the different trade places then compared them. Toolstation is almost always cheaper (from pence to
lots of pounds). There is a City Plumbing store next to my local one. I went in there after being in TS to ask them about something, they saw the
catalogue in my hand and, without prompting, said "We can't do their prices". Too bad hey!
Seriously, visit Toolstation.com now sign up, get a free catalog each month and you'll find yourself on the bog with it or walking round B&Q
comparing the prices. They also pride themselves on having a free vending machine in the stores. I can highly recommend the soup; the staff started
making jokes that was the only reason I was down there twice a day.
The people using Toolstation are actually trade guys, so you can get some help with things if you spot someone looking at the items you are in the
store. It works like Argos, you take a card in, or fill one in at the place, hand it over, then the staff go and pick all the bits up out of a huge
rack of bins and shelves behind them. So the insurance is loads lower, things don't get put back in the wrong place and the till prints a "go to this
isle, this row, this bin" ticket, allowing them to find it in seconds.
If you make an order over £10 before 6pm online, it'll turn up the next morning for free. And they're open to 4pm on Sunday. NICE.
I go on about Toolstation all the time. They're not, but they SHOULD be paying me for the amount of advertising I do.
I am very reluctant to start publishing long lists of where I pick up chemicals OTC online, as there are gimps watching these forums (lots, lots more
than you'd think), not posting (the people posting are the minority), who'll do a "burn my own face off, get caught cooking drugs with it" and have it
knocked off the shelf.
[Edited on 22-9-2010 by peach]
