Prime Building Materials

i stopped at two prime locations today, both on lankershim, one near vanowen and one near strathern… and i have to commend them on their customer service. edgar at my first stop sent me to armando at my second stop… both were beyond helpful with my plant rocks needs. thank you prime, i’ll definitely be back!

I literally just waited in their «show room» for 40 minutes with no help whatsoever, I asked the two guys behind the counter twice and they said they will get right with me, 20 minutes after waiting again I walked out

I’ve only been there a couple of times, but as a design novice I found it easy to get in, locate what I needed, and get out. On both visits, I was lucky enough to work with Daniel, who helped me weigh and load a few hundred pounds of Yosemite stone. Great service. I’ll be back!

Shop around first. Their price for landscape gravel is TWICE what others are charging. Nice showroom though.

Best prices in town !! Ask for bobby they have any masonry things you need at a fair reasonable price !!

I’m a landscape architect so I am always looking for helpful staff and may have pesky questions. I found the staff at Prime to be helpful, even referring great contractors to me. They seem to work hard at getting good prices for their products and have a nice display room.

Salesman totally misled us. We needed stone for our house and he showed us a nice looking 3′ x 3′ mock-​up of the stone. Even told us he good get us a special price. My wife and I are novices at buying stone so we had no idea that what we were being sold was not stone at all — it was formed cement painted to look like stone! When the pallet arrived I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Looked cheap and the color was only on the surface so it wouldn’t last over time. I called and of course no one would answer my questions or make a decision or admit anything. It was only after I threatened to void the entire transaction that they agreed to take it back — after charging me a 25% restocking fee. Well I learned an expensive but important lesson. Went to Bourget Bros. in Santa Monica and although I paid top $ we got beautiful stone and great service. As for Prime… never again.

I was a little hesitant to go to this place having read the reviews but I needed to see stone and make a quick selection. This is a great place, clean and well thought out. Many, many examples of stone, brick etc in situ. Its sometimes difficult to see a pile of dusty stone and visualize what it will look like when laid, grouted and sealed. You can see all of this in the showroom. Our sales associate Leonardo was great, helpful and very knowledgable. I would go back here as I don’t think selection and service can be beaten. If you have an idea of what you need they will point you in the right direction. Thank you Prime, and thank you Leonardo.

Buyer beware. Hand select your stone wherever you go and make sure they deliver what you selected. I bought a palate of flagstone and 50% of it was useless and broken. Once you dig into your delivery and start moving it around, it’s very difficult to return this stuff. They told me they would take care of me and they did not. Avoid this place.

I agree with another reviewer that these guys are jerks. They treat customers like they are stupid, or maybe they just treat women like they are stupid. Either way, they won’t be getting any more of my business. If you need hardscaping supplies, call Balboa Brick, or Arroyo supply.
Here is my experience with Prime. I went here to look and price out small white gravel for a landscaping project I was working on for a client. I’m a professional landscape designer. When I told my contractor /​installer the price they quoted on the stone, he said it was pretty high. Then he got a quote from them and it was lower. Why are different prices quoted to different people? I told them the rocks were for my client, they didn’t seem to care one bit that I am a contractor too. Which is what makes me think they are probably sexist pigs. Anyway, when we ended up ordering 10 scoops of the small white gravel, they came back with a problem, small white gravel isn’t in stock. Then why do you show it as one of your products in your display? Why don’t you say it right up front when we are having a conversation about small white gravel? So, My client ordered the larger gravel, which was not cheap. None of their products are cheap. And when it was delivered, the tiny pile of stones did not look like 10 scoops. My contractor ended up having to go back and get more white rocks in bags. I hope he went to a different place because these guys don’t deserve to be in business. They are jerks.

So glad I found this company on Unilocal and didn’t have to drive up into the hills to a sand and gravel place. I had also looked at H D and Lowes but they didn’t have anything as nice as Prime 3. I chose Montana pebbles and red lava rock and some stepping stones for the relandscaping of my front yard. Salesmen, Danny and Junior were very helpful ordering the right amount. Delivery was great, right on time. Everyone was very nice to this little old lady from North Hollywood. Will go back when I need more.

We were sent here by our contractor to pick out stones or tiles for our second floor deck. I tried to call ahead to find out what the showroom hours were … the company had no website and the phone number listed on Unilocal was incorrect. I dug around a bit and found the right number. Seconds into the phone conversation, the person on the phone insisted that I have the wrong place.
«This is Prime Building Materials at 7811 Lankershim, right?»
«Yes, but we only sell flagstones, you must have the wrong place.»
«Uh, ok, my contractor wants me to pick out some tiles or stones for our deck, so you are telling me I can’t come and take a look at what you have?»
«If you must come, we have a showroom, but I think you have the wrong place.»
I didn’t bother explaining this bizarre conversation to my contractor because he assured me he knew someone there who would help us when we showed up.
We went to the showroom on Saturday and walked around for 5 minutes with no help in sight. Finally I waved down someone who was clearly angry about having to work on a Saturday. Two sentences into our conversation, he insisted that we were at the wrong place (I began to wonder if they just all did that to scare away customers or if I talked to the same guy on the phone too).
I called my contractor out of a meeting to deal with this. Turned out the guy my contractor knew didn’t work on Saturdays. Wonderful. But he called the store and spoke to the angry employee for a few minutes, and angry Martin (that’s his name) changed his attitude, «Oh, you are looking for stones or tiles for your deck, why didn’t you say so?» (I did say so, at least twice, you just refused to listen!).
Martin led us outside and pointed to two crates of flagstones (one of a muddy gray color and another of a muddy off-​white) and said, «These are the only stones that meet your contractor’s specification. We don’t carry anything else that would work for you.»
Wow, I love how he «appeared» to be more helpful while managing to be absolutely useless to us. Per my contractor’s advice, I took some pictures of tiles and stones that are of the coloring I want and I guess my contractor will have to get the materials somewhere else.
This place clearly didn’t want my business and essentially told me so, twice, it’s just unbelievable. Not only will I do everything I can to not patronize this business, I will tell everyone I know not to go there!

Stopped by to look at some tile and stone. The customer service was great. All my questions were answered and all the employees were very friendly. There’s also a showroom with a ton of displays.

Whoever gave them some good ratings I guess are their workers.
Yeah boy these Guys I can even pin point their exact names are real time jerks. They don’t know what customer service means.
Really big headed, with big time attitudes. Never shop here unless to get a sample and buy the real stuff from Sand Building or Central Valley Building. It is unfortunate for a big store like this they have these people workiing. These are the people that should be unemployed. Really. BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE. Avoid at any cost!

I’m re-​writing this review as my first one was «filtered» and I’d hate to have any potential customers miss out on hearing about my experience.
The management/​staff at Prime was downright unhelpful. They acted like my basic questions about quality/​brand were stupid. They were stingy with samples, suggestions, and advice and were generally unpleasant. Given the number of places to buy stone in the SF valley, I was very disappointed and would highly suggest shopping elsewhere. If you just want to browse, they have decent displays, but forget about it if you need any help.

So much stuff to choose from. Really friendly, knowledgeable staff. LOVE Hugo! Super organized and professional. They were patient and cool with me, even though most guys there are builders with big trucks! And I even got a taco recommendation that turned out to be killer!

Show Room was clean and has great example, regarding the management ! I thought i had to speak spanish !!! No one is can speak good english there. And the main latino management who spoke good english was playing on his Iphone. It’s a great cover for the cartel. Viva Mexico ! I rather go somewhere else !!!

What a great place for choosing rock/​stones. Very clean and organized.
Martin Ortiz asked if I needed help and spent about 45 min. with me helping me decide the amount of stones I needed.
Please don’t miss pass up on this location for rocks & stones.

Everyone I spoke to was very nice and helpful. I only bought $ 20 worth of stone for my front yard — which is like walking into a palace and buying a pack of gum.
But even though I was probably one of their smallest purchases of the day, their guys in the hard showed me lots of different stones to meet my needs.

This is were you go when you need stone…
Out in North Hollywood on Lankershim, these guys are the best. Now, I am not a stone connoisseur but I know my flagstone from a well you get the idea…
The showroom is spectacular. I have visited many a stone yard and these guys have the best. Check out my photos…
What makes them 5 stars is one they are very inexpensive and two they have both natural and artificial stone. My wife and I never have been called artificial at least to our faces… So we went for some pre-​cut 6X12 flagstone for a border we needed around some planters. They have many different shades in the same stone and have those already separated… You gotta keep em separated…
The deal clincher to know that they are for real, is we visited them by chance a few weeks before we met with our contractors. When we asked our contractors what stone they wanted to use, they showed us a sample from Prime…
Contractors use them and they treated us non-​contractor types extremely well… Try going to a stoneyard and get some help elsewhere. GooD Luck buddy!!!