Tool Under Review: The Burke Bar

OK, here is a new addition to The Quirky Contractor. Each week I will post a review on a tool I feel is worthy to comment on. Hopefully through doing so you will be able to get a real overview of a tool that you can possibly use on one of your projects or suggest for your contractors to use. Or maybe the tool is just a waste of space and this will help you avoid a costly purchase.

There are so many cool tools out there. I continue to find tools that make my job easier and less painful to my body. There is always the right way and wrong way to perform a task, and most likely the tools you use define whether you do the job the right way or the wrong way.

This weeks tool is really the MVP of the job we did a month ago in Wyoming. We had to demolish an existing deck and recover it with a concrete overlay. The tool that made the demolition go by so fast was the Burke Bar.The Burke Bar is the yellow tool in this picture. The other two tools will be discussed next week. They were useful as well. The Burke Bar is a heavy duty demolition specific leverage bar to help bust up stubborn flooring like tile, wood, or concrete overlays. Here are the pros and cons:

1. It is very, very heavy, which allows the bar to do most of the work. Just like a sledge hammer is heavy this tool is heavy on purpose. It allows the user to plunge the tool into the flooring and the weight of the tool alone will do some serious damage.
2. The teeth on the end of the curved bar allows you to get up under the flooring and really pry it up. I haven't found another floor demo tool that can get up under difficult flooring like the Burke Bar. Other tools need a second tool like a hammer to help pry up under the flooring.
   
3. The heavy nature of the bar does get you more tired then some of the other demo bars out there. We were exhausted by the time we were done demoing the deck but it was also over 1,000 square feet. That is a lot of flooring to demo in only 5 hours.
   
4. The bar is shaped a little odd. You have to construe your body a little to get the bar to slide under the flooring properly. They really need to fix the shape so that you don't feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame when you are done.

Overall I would need to give this tool a 4 1/2 out of 5 stars for its effectiveness. Really the only downfall would be its awkward shape, but nonetheless we were able to get much more work done in less time. The translate into $$$ and that is what makes a good tool great.

Tools of the Trade

Plain and simple, "the right tool is worth it's weight in gold."

That statement rings true with any construction project you try to trump. If you use the right tool you find the job to be fluid, effortless and almost fun, (if projects like demolishing a concrete deck can be fun.)

As for us and our Wyoming deck adventure, we found that we had some of the right tools and also some that did not work so well. These three tools you see are awesome for the demolition of a stapled or nailed lath deck. I thought we would be spending a day and a half on the demolition but instead with the right tools it only took us 5 hours.

On the other hand when we sheeted the deck with half inch plywood, we used cordless drills to screw it down. Big mistake!!!! We had a lot of down time when batteries needed recharging, and just the constant bending over while screwing in each screw was nauseating. It took two guys two days to screw off the entire 1200 square foot deck. I felt like an idiot because I left our self-feeding screw gun at home. That would have cut the work down to one guy and about 4 hours.

So let me enlighten those that need to find the right tools. Here is what you need to know.

1. Any job that you are going to do, whether it be setting tile or running wiring for your theater room, there are tools that have been invented to help make your job easier. Honestly, whatever it is, they have the tool for you. My goodness, in Dubai they have machines called Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers which build islands out in the middle of the ocean. So if you are in the middle of a project and saying to yourself, "this is taking forever," or your breaking your back trying to get the job done, you are probably using the wrong tool.
2. Talk to the professionals. Contractors for the most part know the tools for their trade. They know what works and what doesn't. Most contractors would be happy to help a Saturday Warrior. Talk to several contractors who do that particular task on a regular basis, odds are they have figured out the fastest way to get the job done.
3. Don't be afraid to use the right tool. We tend to get nervous to use pneumatic tools, or power tools because they seem like too much to handle, or we are nervous we might break the tool or maybe we think the tool is too involved and we won't know how to use it. We resort to cavemen tactics to complete the scope of work which cause us to hate life when you are tying to build a shed and you are using a hammer and nails instead of a pneumatic nail gun. Well let me enlighten you......most of the tools that you would even consider using for any household project are really very simple to use. Once you rent or buy the tool and read up on the instructions, you find out that taking proper care of the tool is more involved then actually using the tool.

In the end you will either look back and say, " man that was worth doing," or you will have tried to kill yourself with the very tools you are using to do the job.