by Gail Falk, Staff Writer
When you’re ready to start your spring cleaning and repair projects, the Hardware Department is ready for you. There is a wide range of housecleaning products, tools, plumbing and electrical supplies, building equipment, and paint.
“We try to have a little of everything,” says David Ertel, Hardware Department manager. “We’re not trying to be a comprehensive building supply company, but we want to have what you need for a weekend job — a switch plate, tacks, bolts. Instead of having to buy a box of 100, the way you do at a big box store, you can get just as many or as few screws, nails, and nuts as you need.”
Ertel started working at the Hardware Store three and a half years ago after many years in manufacturing jobs in Montpelier. He and his wife Linda have lived around here for 37 years, the past 33 on Hollister Hill. Linda is a longtime medical secretary at the Plainfield Health Center, and now both the couple’s children work at the Health Center, too.
Ertel learned the hardware business by working under Rich Christiansen, who built the current building in 2006. Before selling the store last year, Christiansen had phased down sales of grain and fencing for farmers because they were too labor intensive. Perhaps reflecting the area’s changing demographics, the store now has an expanded pet department. Ertel says he tries as much as possible to avoid changing what is carried, so that customers in the midst of a project can be confident they’ll find what they are looking for when they come in.
The store stays equipped for emergencies: flashlights, batteries, sump pumps, sand bags. Other big sellers are seasonal: “Depending on the time of year,” says Ertel, “I may sell hundreds of mouse traps in a month.”
Although most customers are local, the Hardware Department has developed a regional clientele for stove and chimney pipes and fittings. In fact, Plainfield Co-op and Hardware is one of the biggest dealers in the state for chimney supplies, says Ertel, and chimney pipes and supplies are one of the store’s biggest sellers
Color chip samples for Cabot Stains and Clark+Kensington Paints line one wall of the department. The store can mix stain or paint to match any of the chips, or, if you bring in a sample, they can scan the sample and mix paint to match. If you bought paint at the store in the past, they can look up a record of it. Those records, says Ertel, used to be on “slips of paper” but now the paint and stain records are computerized.
Garden supplies — seeds, gloves, tools, fertilizer — are moving to the Greenhouse at the other end of the building. This will give hardware a little more room. “It’s a constant battle for space,” says Ertel.
Ertel chats about what’s going on at the store on WDEV Radio every Monday morning at 8:40. It’s a connection Rich Christiansen started, and now Ertel has taken over the slot. Give a listen.