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I’m in the market for one of these critters… I think! Written reviews seem to suggest not spending the money. What do you all think? What would you buy?
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Bill,
I have screwed my subfloors for years. I always looked at the cost of the gun screws versus doing it the old fashioned way with my dewalt deck screwgun ( like a dry wall gun but 2500 rpm). On average, you would use 1 screw per square foot or so, which in bulk cost about 40 bucks for 5000. I could expect about 8 labor hours maybe a little less for your average 2000 s.f. house.
Gun screws on the other hand cost about 50 to 60 bucks for 2000. Plus, most of the guns I had tried were prone to jambing, and being a general pain in the ass.
Well, I demo-ed a quickdrive with a Dewalt driver and extension last week and tried it out on a few jobs. It has its drawbacks ie. tough to back out screws that missed ( leave them out or use your cordless), and finish driving ones that weren't set all the way (break them off and put another in).
Having said that, I screwed of a little addition 600 s.f. in about a half hour, and a 700 s.f. addition in about an hour. This was on previously nailed subfloor with no lines. I think what I will do now is skip the nailing and screw when decking. This particular machine is about as fast as gun nailing. Net out the cost of nailing and it costs you nothing, maybe even saves a few bucks. Screwed subfloor is the only way to go. Particularly if you use advantech subfloor, as construction adhesive does not stick well to that product. We often have to cut out patches on our remodels and the glue bond breaks on the whole piece with minimal prying.
I think I'm gonna keep the quickdrive. I'm anxious to try it on trex, as there should be some huge labor savings there too.
Tom
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I'm in the market for one of these critters... I think! Written reviews seem to suggest not spending the money. What do you all think? What would you buy?