@elliotw37 knows the secret. Every time you lift that lid you let the magic out.

Oh man that's too real! I did the exact same thing building a little garden shed last summer. I was using cheap drywall screws from the garage and they kept stripping every single time I tried to drive them. After about the tenth one I just threw the drill down and went inside for the day lol. Came back the next day and grabbed a box of stainless steel deck screws with the little star bit head and a proper countersink drill bit. Pre-drilling made such a huge difference I felt like an idiot for not doing it from the start.

Oh man, that reminds me of when I tried to make pancakes with expired buttermilk once and they turned out super fluffy but also kind of sour. @cora_martinez you're spot on though, my grandma always swore by the same trick for her biscuits.

That $1,200 price point is interesting because most of the cheap ones I've seen start closer to $800, what size shed did he actually get for that?

Ngl you might be overthinking it. 15 ft-lbs of difference sounds like a sensor error or a torque wrench calibration issue, not some magic thermal expansion property. I've seen guys argue hot vs cold for decades and the cure always involves a good torque wrench and following the FSM. Your senior tech might be stuck in the old school "feel" method where they just guess half the time. Modern head gaskets and MLS designs are way more forgiving than the stuff from the 60s. Unless you're building a top fuel engine that sees 1500 degrees, torquing cold to spec is fine for 99% of street builds. If you're really that worried just re-torque after a heat cycle and move on.