Tools for housebuilding

We started building our house two summers ago using the tools we already had lying around: some hammers, a primitive Makita chop saw, and an aging cordless drill and circular saw set. We also borrowed an old and somewhat weak table saw from a neighbor. Pretty quickly we realized that we needed better tools to make the building process go more quickly. This was important because building in Vermont is a race against time and the weather: the house had to be closed in before winter.

Our first investment was a better cordless circular saw, a full-sized 7 1/4 inch one. But even this saw with its newfangled lithium ion batteries still ran out of steam when cutting large numbers of 2x10 beams. So once we had a temporary electrical tap at the house site, we bought a corded circular saw.

Another tool we bought pretty soon after the building started was a cordless nail gun. This made building the laminated beams and posts go a little easier. But we were pretty selective about when to use the gun, because it is hard to correct mistakes made with it, and the nails don’t look as nice as the hand-driven kind.

With these tools we made it through the building of the frame and exterior. But it was a bit of a pain using the chop saw to cut the angles for the rafters. These angles are 36 and 54 degrees, and the chop saw could only cut up to 45 degrees. Also, the saw couldn’t cut through an entire rafter in one pass at a 36 degree angle. We made do by cutting rafters in two passes, and by supporting the planks at odd angles instead of flush against the saw’s fence.

Some of the cuts on the siding were also very difficult to do with the tools on hand. Where two siding pieces had to be used for the taller sections of the house, the joints had be cut with a 30 degree bevel, which our old chop saw couldn’t manage. So we did the bevels with the circular saw, and they never came out quite straight.

In retrospect, we should have invested in a modern sliding compound miter saw right up front. It would have shaved many hours off the build time. We did buy one eventually, when we started working on the interior finish work, and we kept kicking ourselves for not buying such a great tool earlier. The saw we bought has an optional LED guide system, which turned out to be another great time saver.

Two other tools we bought at this stage of the project were a decent quality transportable table saw with a good fence, and a cordless finish nailer. These saved us so much time in building the interior walls that, once again, we wished we had made the investment much earlier.

During the framing process, we had used some borrowed screw-type clamps that were strong but very slow to operate, and which put dents in the wood when we didn’t use spacer shims. When we started on the interior, we bought a collection of Irwin Quick Clamps, which were superior in every way except for strength. They don’t dent the wood and are very fast. They also can work as pushers, a feature useful for closing up gaps in the tongue-and-groove sheathing.

Finally, we bought one of the new lightweight cordless driver/drills that are so popular now. There are a few rare cases where we still have to use a much bigger, stronger, heavier drill to do the job. But the lightweight one handles most of the tasks we throw at it, and it is much easier to handle, especially in tight places or when holding it for long periods overhead. We really could have used this drill when we were installing the metal channel roofing, which involved putting in hundreds (or maybe thousands) of screws.