Old timer at the lumber yard told me to pre-drill everything. I thought he was just slow.

I used to skip pre-drilling on pressure treated decks, figured it was a waste of time and my impact could handle it. Then I snapped three screws in a row on a job in Des Moines last August and had to dig them out with vice grips. He was right, I was wrong. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice save them hours of frustration down the line?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer_west18d ago

Took me a few split screw heads on treated lumber before I listened to the same advice. Pre-drilling feels like it slows you down, but in reality it saves the headache of backing out broken screws. One tiny step now beats twenty minutes of frustration later.

sethp2618d ago

Yeah that's exactly it! @jennifer_west you nailed it. The time you save by not pre-drilling is a total illusion. You're just trading five seconds of setup for a fifteen minute extraction job plus a trip to the hardware store for replacements. I've started keeping a little pilot hole guide taped to my drill so I don't even have to think about it anymore. It's become muscle memory at this point and I honestly don't notice the extra step.

shah.evan18d ago

Ha, @jennifer_west you're totally right about that. I used to think pre-drilling was just for old school guys who were stuck in their ways, but man, that first time I had to dig out a snapped screw on a hot afternoon completely flipped my mind. It's one of those things you gotta just take their word on until you prove it the hard way, lol.

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