Nails or screws?

[blessedmamato3]

I'm about to undertake our coop and the idea of screwing in 3" nails with an underpowered drill seems daunting. So, I thought I would see who used nails for their coop and why? I would be doing it the old fashioned way, as I only have access to a finish nailer.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Nails work just fine

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Raccoons ripped off my nailed-in door.

 

[AngelzFyre]

Any way you could borrow a drill and use the screws? Or rent one?
Screws will stay in better and last longer usually and if you have to remove them to re do something, they are way easier to get out.
They do make deck nails that are meant to give the same effect of screws and not back out, but to do an entire coop to me personally would be the end of my wrists from all the concussion! Nails are not bad to use of course, just personal preference really.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

I try to use screws when ever I can. See as wood moves and works it can reject nails (except maybe galv) but when you put screws in they stay and are simple to remove if needed. I would also recommend SQUARE DRIVE screws. They are much easier to deal with than phillips and many others.

 

[CountryBumpkin2011]

I am in the process of building my coop and I can tell you that screws are much easier to correct than nails (as mentioned above). At first I was using a mixture of both depending on which part of the coop I was working on, but seeing as how I have 0 carpentry skills I have had to redo things a few times

and the nails are a pain in the @** to get out compared to the screws.

 

[nerd0geekboyz]

For the frame, I used nails. For the walls and everything else, I used screws.

I used screws because they are easier to remove should I want to make changes to my coop.

 

[ll]

Quote:
yikes!

Screws, definitely screws - we used screws for our entire project and I'm glad we did because I had to rescrew some to incorporate the hardware cloth. I would rather not hear bangbangbang for hours either, the power drill was a good invention

 

[meowteri2]

Use screws for everthing except trim. Clamp to hold pieces aligned and drill pilot hole for the screws. This way they go in easy without splitting the wood and the clamps
will keep the pieces aligned as the screws go in. All that banging with a hammer just knocks things out of shape. Deck screws will pull themselves in but the pilot hole
will keep the pine framing from splitting.

 

[ernndbrtt]

I used screws for everything except the roof sheeting and the shingles on my coop. It really pays though to have a good quality corded drill with a quick change bit holder where you can have a drill bit to pre-drill your holes and then remove it to put in your driver bit. Cordless drills are nice and I used mine to pre-drill my holes and then used my corded drill to drive them home, but if one is on a limited budget, one good corded drill will can work nearly as fast. I've found that unless you spend big money on a cordless drill and buy extra batteries that they just don't hold up to driving screws, you'll constantly be changing batteries.