I picked the $40 Harbor Freight tile saw over the $600 wet saw and it worked out fine

Had to pick between a big rental wet saw for my bathroom remodel or just grabbing that cheap little tile saw from Harbor Freight. I went with the cheap one because I only had 60 square feet of subway tile to cut in my brother's bathroom near downtown Austin. It took me a little longer to cut everything but it didn't chip the edges and I saved over $500. Has anyone else taken the budget route on tile work and regretted it or had it work out?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura_allen1mo ago

Oh man, I gotta disagree a little bit. I've gone the cheap tool route plenty of times and sometimes it backfires bad. Tile saws are one of those things where the cheap ones can really struggle if you're doing anything with harder materials like porcelain or natural stone. The Harbor Freight ones have a lot of wobble in the blade, and if you ever try to cut a diagonal or a more precise angle, that cheap saw will just fight you the whole way. For straight cuts on basic subway tile in a small bathroom, sure, you probably got away with it, but that's about the easiest possible tile job there is.

the_alice1mo ago

Honestly this is such a classic case of overthinking stuff. I feel like people get so caught up in what the pros use that they forget most of us just need something simple that works. I see this all the time in my own life, like when my neighbor bought a fancy grill with all these features and then just uses it to make burgers once a month. Meanwhile my cheap charcoal grill does the same job for way less money. It's like people think spending more automatically means better results, but that's not always true. You matched the tool to the job and saved cash, that's just smart.