Tried the "Dealer Locator" on the Homasote website and made two interesting discoveries:
(A) The "distance to dealers" function is completely wonky; showing the stocking dealers to be much, much closer than they actually are. For example, the page claims a dealer in San Diego is 39.5 miles from my home, when in fact San Diego is 90 airline miles away and a good 110 by Freeway. The other distances cited were equally off-base.
(B) The list of stocking dealers that I printed out was also completely -well, *almost* completely- useless.
NONE of the listed dealers I that called stocked Homasote, and a typical phone response went something like this: "Homasote? Can you spell that? What's it used for? Naw, I ain't never heard of it and we sure don't carry it. *CLICK*
The saving grace was a guy who knew what it was and said no, they'd never stocked it, but who took a moment to look up the availability of Homasote at the other retail outlets in his chain, and (bless him) found a place only 25 miles -*real* miles, mind you- from my home that has it in stock.
Now skeptical, I took the time to confirm by phone that this dealer *did* in fact have it in stock (they do) and that they were willing to sell it in whatever quantities I needed (they will).
Wanna know the kicker?
The place that *does* have it in stock -and indeed, the only place I could find it in southern California- does not appear on the Homasote website's "Dealer Locator"!
I've notified Homasote by e-mail of what I discovered about their website, but knowing how business hierarchies work I'm not really expecting anything much to happen.
-Pete