Swapped my manual hand tools for a power drill on ladder cleanup jobs and it's way faster

3 comments

3 Comments

Scott.alex makes a good point about the drywall thing. Last spring I was cleaning up a second story gutter and my drill kicked back when the bit caught a hidden nail head, and I put a nice little dent right in the aluminum siding below. Took me longer to find a paint match from the hardware store than it would have to just use a screwdriver for that one spot. That extra ten seconds by hand sounds boring but it adds up way less than driving back to the store for a quart of siding paint.

scott.alex1d ago

Yeah but you're giving up a ton of control on the cleanup. I've seen guys blast a screw half an inch into drywall with a drill because they lost feel on the trigger. Hand tools let you finesse the angle and pressure way better on the final pass. Plus if you're doing ladder work near windows or finished floors, one slip with a power tool means a cracked pane or a gouge you gotta patch. Speed is nice until you gotta spend two hours fixing a mistake you could've avoided taking an extra ten seconds by hand.

kevinw941d ago

Power tools definitely save time until they cost you time. That siding dent story proves it's not always a shortcut worth taking. Sometimes boring is better when it keeps you out of the hardware store.