11 Best Power Tools You Can’t Live Without

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1. Cordless Drill

You can never have enough cordless drills in our opinion! Jamie and I each have 3-5 of our own and sometimes we’re still in need of another, but we’re also working multiple construction jobs throughout the week and hardly have time to put them on the charger.

A cordless drill is a must have for any homeowner. You can use a cordless drill for hanging blinds, driving screws, and even as a paddle for mixing up paint, mortar or grout.

Pros: Used for everything home improvement, drilling holes, driving screws, mixing grout
Favorite Product: DEWALT Cordless Drill (Jamie’s Favorite) or Bosch Cordless Drill set (Morgan’s favorite)
Price: $50-100

2. Impact Driver

You might think you don’t often need an impact driver if you have a cordless drill. Standard drills have lower rotational torque, while an impact driver has a higher and faster rotational torque and strike. This helps nudge fasteners along, while preventing the screw tip from spinning out of the grooves in the fastener.

Impact drivers are beneficial if you’re driving longs screws into drywall, building decks or any sort of lumber building. It’s quick and fast, and can also be loud!

Pros: Quick and fast, used for lumber, drywall, decks
Favorite Product: DEWALT Impact Driver
Price: $75- 150

3. Hammer Drill

Another one of our favorite must-have drills is a hammer drill. There are a ton of different drill options out there, and you might think you only need one, but these are our top 3 drills we wouldn’t be able to live without. However, a hammer drill is used to drill hard materials. While there is confusion behind an impact driver and hammer drill, thinking they are the same, they are not. If the only material you are working with is wood and not heavy surfaces like metal or concrete a hammer drill probably isn’t necessary.

A hammer drill is almost like a jackhammer, but a drill. It exerts greater force directly into the bit, while an impact driver increases the force being delivered perpendicular to the bit. So if you work with hard materials such as metal or concrete, you’ll want a hammer drill in your tool kit.

Pros: Drills through rebar and metal, breaks up concrete
Favorite Product: DEWALT Hammer Drill
Price: $100- 350

4. Miter Saw

A miter saw is a specialized tool that lets you make highly accurate cuts at a variety of angles. The saw has a blade mounted on a swing arm that pivots left or right to produce angled cuts. We use our miter saw all the time when we’re needing to make sharp angles. You can use a miter saw to quickly make cuts for crown molding, picture frames, door frames, window casings and more.

The best part about a miter saw is that you can easily throw it onto a stand too, so you don’t always have to cut on the ground.

Pros: Highly accurate cuts, easy to haul, fast cuts, good for long boards and short boards
Favorite Product: DEWALT Miter Saw
Price: $200- 600

5. Circular Saw

A circular saw is a power tool that uses an abrasive blade disc to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an arbor. It’s most commonly referred to as the handheld saw. If you had to choose one saw to have on hand, this would be it! It’s easy to haul, simple to use and cuts just about anything, but it’s designed for cutting wood.

Pros: Easy and always ready to cut, small enough to haul, basic saw for any cut
Favorite Product: DEWALT Circular Saw
Price: $30- 100

6. Jigsaw

Pros: Can cut through anything, easy to use, cuts into tight corners and rounded edges
Favorite Product: DEWALT Jigsaw
Price: $50- 200

7. Orbital Sander

An orbital sander is used for sanding surfaces and moves into very tight corners because of its orbital motion, driven at high speed by an electric motor. Compared to your typical sanding with the grain, the orbital sander leaves less obvious grain marks when sanding which means it leaves less room for error. But at the same time when using an electric sander you have to be careful and let the sander do the work, not your strength because if you put too much muscle into it, it’ll dent the wood.

Pros: You let the sander do the work, no need to worry about grain lines, minimal room for error
Favorite Product: DEWALT Orbital Sander
Price: $20-60

8. Finish Nailer

Jamie uses his finish nailer almost every day. A finish nailer is something you will use for almost every project. When it comes to finishing carpentry or woodworking, the finish nailer always outperforms any other type of nailer. There are a lot of other nailers out there like the brad nailer and for how much construction work we do, we don’t even own a brad nailer. The finish nailer is our go-to.

Finish nailers are always the tool to go when building furniture, installing trim, and for any outdoor work such as decks, patios and any other indoor and outdoor home improvement projects.

As you would guess by the name, the finish nailer is for finishing projects to keep things held together without seeing the nail too much. And when it comes to the holding power, they are a much better option than the Brad nailer and many other types of nailers. Like most other nail guns, finish nailers are available in electric and gas-powered models and also in different gauges.

Pros: Best for trim work, versatile
Favorite Product: DEWALT Finish Nailer
Price: $80- 200

9. Air Compressor

And if you have an electric finish nailer like us, you’ll need an air compressor.

An air compressor is a type of power tool that is used to pressurize air to operate your tools. Painting, drilling or sanding are common air tool applications that require a compressor. The primary components of a compressor are the piston and cylinder.

Pros:  Inexpensive way to power your electric power tools such as drilling, nailing, and sanding
Favorite Product: Husky Air Compressor
Price: $150- 500

10. Wood Router

If you’re doing any type of woodwork, you need a wood router. A wood router is power tool that carpenters use to route out wood. Routers are usually handheld or fastened into a router table.

A wood router has an electric-motor drive spindle that creates fancy edges, lips, ledges, the perfect round finish and hollow into any wood for any purpose that you need.

Pros: Reduce waste woodwork, easy operation, precise cutting for intricate woodwork
Favorite Product: Rigid Wood Router
Price: $30- 200

11. Shop Vac

You all know how messy any construction is and that’s why a shop vac is a must have. A shop vac was invented for construction and woodworking, and we can’t imagine what our shop or even our home would look like without it. Even our standard vacuum cleaner can rarely clean up after two toddlers, so you bet our shop vac makes it’s way into our home often.

Shop Vac’s suck up nails, screws, water, sawdust, chunks of wood and pretty much any mess you create from your construction. Construction sites always get very messy, and sawdust finds it’s way throughout every nook and cranny that no broom can ever get up, but with a shop vac it sucks everything up instantly.

Pros: Cleaning large pieces such as wood chips and screws to small pieces like sawdust
Favorite Product: RIGID 16 gallon, wet/dry
Price: $50-$100

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