I thought some of you might appreciate this interesting chain of events.

Recently I was having a new light installed in the duct & plumbing soffit in my basement ceiling. The installation required me to cut the appropriate size hole in the ceiling where I wanted the light and frame out the support structure to mount everything solid. I was on a short timeline because the electrician schedule was he was either going to arrive in two days or two months and two months was too far away, I needed the new lights in less than a month for a family gathering.

Time to dive in and get this job done.

I located the rough location where I wanted the light to be and then started measuring the soffit studs to find the most logical place to put the light. It turns out that the size of the hole I needed to cut was going to be directly in the center of the studs which created a framing problem. A plan came together to cut the hole to size then chop off the studs so they wouldn’t be in the way and then overlap the gap in the studs with a new stud to overlap the cut out section. I’ve done this kind of thing lots of times in my history so I knew that there wasn’t going to be a problem accomplishing the task.

I went into my shop and threw my 18V Dewalt battery for my Reciprocating Saw, aka Sawzall, into the charger and proceeded to accurately mark and hand cut the hole in the ceiling. Got everything ready to Sawzall the studs. I grabbed the charged battery pack out of the charger, slapped it into the Sawzall and climbed up the ladder into the ceiling hole to make the premarked cuts and found out that the Sawzall wouldn’t fit between the HVAC ductwork and the studs on one side. Well crap. So I thought, I might as well cut the side that was easily accessible with the Sawzall and then put a much longer blade in the Sawzall so I could cut the ductwork side with the Sawzall sticking out of the hole I cut and fix the drywall later. I lined up the Sawzall on the accessible side and squeezed the trigger. The blade zigzagged one or twice, and then it stopped dead. The battery was completely dead even though I had just charged it. So naturally I went back into the shop and and threw the other 18V battery on the charger and walked away frustrated that I had to wait to get this done. At least I still had plenty of time.

Guess what; the second battery wouldn’t hold a freaking charge either. Well crap again! So I resorted to the handsaw. I grabbed the hand saw and climbed up into the ceiling to start hand cutting and found out that the hand saw wouldn’t fit between the duct and the studs either.

This was turning into a comedy of errors.

Now what the heck was I going to do?

I looked up getting a new 18V Dewalt battery and found that they were no longer available, anywhere. I went to Dewalt’s website and found a nice adapter so I could use 20V batteries on an 18V Dewalt tool. Finally something was going right! I headed to my local Home Depot and picked up the adapter, two battery packs, and a charger and I was okay with the little investment to get my 18V tools to work again. Satisfied that I now had a workable solution, and I didn’t have to spend a pile of money, I headed home a happy man. Luckily the batteries were about half way charged according to the little battery charge indicator on the side of the battery, so I dove right in to complete the job. I threw the battery adapter in my Sawzall, put a half charged battery in the tool, gave it a quick test and it worked, put a longer cutting blade in the tool, and headed to the ceiling to make the cuts. I climbed into the ceiling, again, aligned the Sawzall blade up with the cut lines and squeezed the trigger. The Sawzall started to cut for about 5 seconds and then it stopped dead. I tried the other battery and it did the same thing. I looked at the battery indicators again and they were almost dead. Well fuck me, I thought. I threw one of the batteries on the charger knowing it was going to take a couple of hours to charge I walked away frustrated again that I had to wait. Time was running out today and by the time the battery is charged it will be too late to start sawing. I had to wait until the next morning, the last day before the electrician was to arrive. Okay I thought to myself, I can still do this, I’ve got enough time tomorrow.

The next morning came around and I headed to the basement to finish this job.

I threw the fully charged battery in the Sawzall, put the backup battery pack in the charger, gave the Sawzall a quick test and it worked, I climbed up in the ceiling, aligned the saw blade up with the mark on the stud, squeezed the trigger and the Sawzall ran for about 5 seconds and then stopped dead. I tried it again and it did the same thing again, then it wouldn’t start at all. I checked the battery and it was fully charged. The other battery was still on the charger.

My head voice was screaming “FUCK ME AGAIN!”

Now what?

I went to Dewalt’s website and searched for a 20V Sawzall and found a compact one that would allow me to cut without interference from the ductwork. I went to Home Depot’s website and searched to make sure that my local Home Depot had the Sawzall I wanted, they did and it came as a tool only without batteries, and it was on sale. Time was growing short. I rushed to Home Depot and picked up the new 20v Sawzall, headed home, threw in one of my new fully charged 20v batteries and made the cuts I needed in about 3 minutes. All that for 3 minutes of cutting!

I got out my chop saw, cut the two crossover boards and the other two mounting structure boards to length, grabbed a few screws, put the magnetic driver bit in my 18V cordless drill, attached the 20V adapter and the 20V battery and gave it a test – it seemed to work without shutting off so I climbed up in the ceiling again. Knowing that I was finally going to get this done. I put one of the boards in place and started to drive the screws in with the cordless drill. After a couple of screws a cloud of smoke rolled out of the drill and it shut off. I had just burned up my cordless drill!

My head voice screamed, FUCK ME AGAIN! ARRRGH!!!

This comedy of errors had gone on long enough. I grabbed my large and very powerful 1/2″ chuck corded drill, and extension cord and finished driving in all the screws including the new drywall screws that were needed to properly finish the job. I finally had the job done and finished it before the electrician arrived.

Man was I frustrated at this ridiculous comedy of errors.

After the lighting job was finished I needed to figure out what to do with my cordless tools. I completely burned up my 18V drill so in the trash it went and now I needed to replace it. The 20V adapters really didn’t work properly in my old (really old) 18V tools so those tools were basically boat anchors now. Arrrgh!

I started my drill replacement search first, and since I already had two 20v batteries I focused on the new 20V Dewalt drills. I really dug into every 20V drill that Dewalt makes, narrowing it down to the features I wanted, checking all the spec’s, read good and bad reviews, and watched positive and negative video reviews. I wasn’t in a hurry. I finally narrowed it down to one specific drill to purchase.

Now it was time to see how to purchase this drill. There’s drill only without batteries, drills with batteries, and multi-tool kits that had various other tools and extra batteries. I finally found a multi tool kit that included the drill I wanted, a circular saw that was 20V/60V FLEXVOLT (big advantage when you need something really powerful), a LED flashlight, two upgraded 20V battery packs, and a heavy-duty charger. Because of Black Friday sales, that multi-tool kit was $25 cheaper than just buying the tool only.

Since I had plenty of time and had my cordless tools covered, I found and purchased a complete set of internal batteries and rebuilt one of my 18V battery packs and now I have my 18V tools working again.

So in the long run, this lengthy convenient timing for a forced tooling upgrade comedy of errors shoved me into the modern cordless world where I upgrade from my very old 18V Dewalt drill/driver/hammer drill, 6 1/4″ compact circular saw, sawzall, and flashlight to a modern version of the same basic tools, those being a 20V drill/driver/hammer drill, 7 1/4″ full size circular saw, sawzall, flashlight and I added a handy little wet/dry vacuum that will be quite handy around the house and in my shop.

OUT WITH THE OLD,
IN WITH THE NEW!

A couple of weeks have gone by and I’m over it now. The increase in power from my old 18V tools to the new modern 20V brushless tools is significant and worth all the frustration I endured in this comedy of errors. I’m not sure if I’ll spend the time or money to rebuild the other 18V battery or use the 18V tools anymore, right now I put the rebuilt 18V battery in the flashlight and it’ll get used there for sure. It’s hard to have too many functional flashlights around the house.

I actually saved a bunch of money with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this year. If any of you happen to be in the market for multiple cordless tool kits and the 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are still going on in your area, it’s a good time to look into it before prices go back up. I haven’t seen deals as good as they are this year in a long time, the deals were wide spread and really good this year!

Have a great holiday season.