What is your project? Are you doing your own plumbing? Building a new addition onto your home? Or perhaps you are starting with something simpler such as building a dog house? Examine the material you will be using to do the job. In the case of plumbing, for example, you will be working with steal and PVC pipes, gaskets, and rings and all sorts of small and large parts. Do you know the parts? Do you know which tool will do the job? Write down what you don’t know then get thee to a hardware store and ask a lot of questions.
Let’s look at a project that is more likely to use power tools. How about that dog house? This is a great way for the new do-it-yourselfer to learn the skills needed for a larger future project. What size is the house going to be, how thick are the boards and how long or tall will the house be. Are you using shingles for the roof? Just how creative is this dog house? Now, you need to think about what kind of saw you will need and which type of blade is appropriate to cut the boards and create the door. Whether you want to use a power hammer or old school hammer will relate to your selection of fasteners. When you build the floor of the dog house you may need a drill for the floor boards to connect them to the flooring supports.
Choosing the best power tool is not so much about which tool is the most fancy or powerful. It is more about which one will get the job done better. If you start with a smaller project or smaller part of a larger job, you can learn about how to select the best power tools by asking the right questions at the hardware store.
