My neighbor in Mill Woods said he'd never use a reciprocating saw for demo again

I was helping him tear out an old deck last weekend and he just stopped, looked at the saw, and said, 'This thing is a wrecking ball. It's fast, but it's making a mess of the joist ends I want to save.' He switched to a simple circular saw and a hand saw for the tight spots. It took longer, but the cuts were clean and he saved about 80 bucks worth of lumber for his next project. I've always just grabbed the recip saw first for any demo job. His comment made me rethink my whole approach. Now I'm wondering if I've been too rough on materials just to save a few minutes. Has anyone else found that slowing down with different tools actually saves money or gives better results on a tear-out?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica_ross382d ago

But time is money, so isn't a faster mess sometimes the smarter move?

avery_smith222d ago

Depends on what you mean by a faster mess... because a rushed job usually means fixing mistakes later. That ends up costing more time than if you did it right the first time. Speed only saves money if the quality is still good enough. Otherwise you're just trading a small problem now for a bigger one next week.

kevin_harris782h ago

My buddy in Red Deer tried to use a recip saw to pull some old kitchen cabinets. He wanted to save the plywood for a shed shelf. That saw shook everything apart and splintered all the edges. He ended up with a pile of scrap instead of usable sheets. He told me he wasted a whole Saturday and about sixty bucks in materials he had to replace. Now he uses a multitool to cut the caulk and unscrews everything carefully.