Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Goldilocks and the Three Mitre Saws

Photo Credit: A Low Impact Woodland Home


Once upon a time, there was a couple who acquired a home with a basement. Sadly, they were unsure of how big of a saw they would need to install new baseboard trim. The husband went into the workshop and found a saw and a mitre box. Sadly, it was too small to do the job.




So the husband went to a great big store and bought a bigger mitre box with a bigger and better saw. Unfortunately, it was too small to do the job too.





Then, the wife went to an even bigger store and rented an even bigger mitre saw and brought it home and it was just right!





If you are like us and not quite ready to invest in the big ticket handyman tools like a compound mitre saw, you can rent one from Home Depot or a local tool rental place. (Pricing was pretty similar all around.) We rented ours on a four hour rental at 6pm and returned it at 9am the next morning and were able to do cuts for about 96 linear ft of trim. This was hubby's first time using this type of saw and doing this type of job. 

The base cost for four hours was $29 or $41 for a full twenty four hours. (Plus tax and insurance)

If you only have a small job to do, like we did, I would recommend renting. The cost for purchasing a basic saw is around $200 and the one we rented is worth closer to $600. You could also try being really, really good and hope for one from Santa... 


DIY Rating: 
10 for ease of renting a saw
6 for actual use of power saw by novice handyman
0 for trying to DIY a basement with a hand tool


More before and after shots to come as well as a run-down of the entire project. 

1 comment:

  1. The tool rental racket seems a good idea to me. We don't have the room -- nor, most of the time, the need -- for a lot of fancy tools. Renting them for a day is a nice solution.

    We went to the Home Despot to rent a power sander in order to remove flaking paint from our front and back porches. They told us to do it by hand though. Apparently the paint gums up the sander. Despots or not, it was nice of them to give us advice that saved us money.

    The porches are still not clear of paint...

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting The Do-tique. Please let me know what you think - I love hearing from my readers!