New power tools: a hammer drill and an impact driver

For the past week or so, since Labor Day weekend, we’ve been building out new shelving and cabinetry to turn a portion of the existing laundry room into a mudroom of sorts. I’ve mentioned this in an earlier post.

Porter Cable's Hammer Drill and Impact Driver

I gotta say I’m building up an interesting collection of tools that I had never previously knew existed. Ah, the joys of home ownership.

A few years ago while we lived in the old townhouse, I purchased my first drill / driver, a Black  & Decker 14.4v Firestorm. In July 2014, I needed and purchased my first orbital jig saw, a Porter-Cable 6 amp power tool at Lowe’s Home Improvement. I used it to trim the old townhouse gate, and to install the two cat doors in the new house. I’ve actually come to appreciate the quality in this one Porter-Cable product.

I was having trouble with the wall supports, so I did some research and bought a Porter-Cable impact driver. I wanted to screw the supports more tightly into the studs, and impact drivers offer more torque.

Last year, I discovered the previous owners had left us non-functioning patio / landscape lights. I tried to fix them last year, but no easy fixes. In March, I contracted with a local landscaper to not only landscape the yard area, but also fix the lighting. It’s September and he still hasn’t fixed them, even though his “guys” say they fixed it. He promised to come out last week, never did.

Annoying. Might as well fix it myself, so I purchased new lights at Home Depot. I’m not waiting around longer and paying this guy to not fix my lights. This new project will require:
1. Removing the old light fixtures from the stone patio wall.
2. Drilling new holes in the masonry.
3. Installing four new fixtures.
4. Hooking everything up.

You need a hammer drill to drill into masonry. Last year while we were fixing up the townhouse backyard gate, I rented a hammer drill from Home Depot, but now that I will need to use a hammer drill for this project.

My next project after installing new patio lights is to properly rewire the basement home theater (2nd attempt), including mounting speakers in some of the basement concrete walls. Might as well buy my own hammer drill and stop renting.

Porter-Cable has a 20v hammer drill/driver, so I picked it up also. It can replace my current Black & Decker — it’s stronger, lighter, and has a nice little LED light on the front. In hindsight, I could have saved some money by purchasing only the drill (not the set that comes with another batter charger and two more batteries), but maybe I’ll keep them as backups.