Makita Tools FAQ: Buying for a Field Crew

I'm the office administrator for a 35-person facilities services company. I handle about 60-80 tool and equipment orders a year for our field crew—drills, batteries, circular saws, ratchets, air hoses, PPE—and I report to operations and finance. This FAQ is the questions that come up most when we're putting together a purchase order.

Quick list if you want to skip around:

• Is the Makita electric ratchet worth adding?
• What can a Makita 18V circular saw actually handle?
• Which impact driver 18V should I standardize on?
• Should I buy an Evolv air compressor or stick with cordless?
• What size hole saw for 2 inch PVC pipe?
• Why does the battery platform matter so much?

The short version: there's no single tool list that works for everyone. My experience is based on about 80 orders over four years for a 12-person field team, so if you're equipping a 100-person site or a one-person handyman business, your mileage will differ.

Is the Makita electric ratchet worth adding to an 18V LXT cart?

Honestly, the Makita electric ratchet wasn't on my radar until our mechanics asked for one. They do a lot of service calls on HVAC units and commercial kitchen equipment, where you're reaching into tight areas and the only way out is to spin a bunch of fasteners. A manual ratchet works, but it's slow when you're doing that ten times a day.

We bought the 18V LXT bare tool (no battery, no charger) because we already had batteries and chargers. The crew doesn't use it daily, but on the days they need it, it saves an unreasonable amount of time. One thing I'd flag: it's a time-saver, not a torque wrench. It gets fasteners out and starts them back in, but the final tightening still needs a manual torque wrench whenever the spec matters.

Also, don't confuse it with an impact wrench. The electric ratchet is for tight spaces where an impact wrench won't fit. If you're taking off lug nuts or big bolts, you need a different tool.

If your crew works on vehicles, machinery, or any equipment with tight access, I'd put it on the list. If you're mainly doing carpentry and light facility work, it can wait.

What can a Makita 18V circular saw actually handle?

The Makita 18V circular saw gets used a lot more than I expected when we first bought one. Our field techs keep a 6 1/2-inch LXT saw for cutting plywood, PVC trim, and dimensional lumber on ladders and roofs. It handles those tasks without a problem. It's not built to spend eight hours ripping stacked 2x12s, but that's not the job it's for.

The main choice when ordering is blade size. A 6 1/2-inch saw is lighter and easier to use overhead. A 7 1/4-inch model cuts deeper and uses the same common size blades as many contractor table saws, but it's bulkier and heavier. For our crew, a brushless 6 1/2-inch saw is the sweet spot. Pair it with a good framing blade and a 5.0Ah battery and it feels like a different tool.

If you're used to a corded saw, give yourself a couple of cuts to adjust. It's not worse; it's just a different workflow. And if the material is metal or concrete, this isn't the tool anyway—you're looking at an abrasive or diamond blade in a different setup.

Which impact driver 18V should I standardize on?

For our crew, the impact driver 18V is the first power tool I'd buy for a new tech. It drives screws and fasteners faster than a drill and strips fewer heads. But it's not a drill. If someone on your team expects to drill holes with the impact driver, order a separate drill/driver; otherwise the arguments start on day one.

Makita's LXT lineup has a few impact drivers, and I'm not going to pretend the newest flagship is always worth the upgrade over the previous generation. The bigger question for a buyer is standardization. Pick one driver model, one battery size, and one charger setup, and keep spare batteries in a central spot. That made our inventory a lot simpler.

The practical lesson I learned is that a compact impact driver with a 2.0Ah battery will handle fastening work all day. The larger batteries belong on the circular saw and hammer drill. If you're ordering a set, resist the urge to buy every tool in the kit. Buy the tools your crew actually uses and put the difference into extra batteries.

One more thing: the impact driver works with hex-shank drill bits, but the chuck style in the accessory adds a little wobble. Our techs keep a regular drill around for anything that needs a clean, straight hole.

Should I buy an Evolv air compressor or stick with Makita cordless?

I get this question whenever we're pricing out a new truck setup. An Evolv air compressor is a budget-friendly way to get compressed air. If your work is mostly brad nailers, staplers, and tire inflation, a small pancake compressor can do the job without a big investment. It also gives you an air source for tools that don't have a good cordless equivalent, like some paint sprayers.

That said, I keep watching our techs reach for the compressor less every year. Once they got a couple of 18V Makita tools, the combination of not climbing down for an extension cord, not dragging a hose, and not waiting for the tank to fill changed how they work. On a jobsite with no power nearby, cordless is the obvious answer.

There's also the maintenance side. A compressor adds oil checks, filters, hoses, and a noisy running interruption to every task. If you're running one pneumatic tool all day on the same floor, that's fine. If the work is scattered across a building, cordless wins.

My honest take: if the budget allows, start with a compact cordless nailer and see how far you get before adding an air rig. Most of our truck setups now have one cordless nailer and one small compressor as backup.

What size hole saw for 2 inch PVC pipe?

The short answer is a 2 1/2-inch hole saw for 2-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe. The outside diameter of 2-inch PVC is about 2.375 inches, so the larger hole saw gives you a little clearance without making the opening unnecessarily big.

If you're passing pipe through a stud or joist and need room for expansion or movement, step up to 2 3/4-inch. For pipe with insulation around it, measure the insulation, not the pipe. A 2-inch hole saw won't fit; a 2 1/4-inch is usually too tight unless the pipe is perfectly straight and never moves.

Also remember that the material matters. A carbide hole saw works fine in wood and some composites. If you're going through tile, cast iron, or steel, you need a specialized bit. I almost made that mistake on a project until our lead tech asked what I was cutting through.

Why does the battery platform matter so much to a buyer?

This is the thing I wish someone had explained before I placed our first big order. When you buy into an 18V platform, you're not just buying a tool; you're buying a battery ecosystem. Makita's 18V LXT line is huge, and most tools in it run on the same 18V LXT batteries. For a buyer, that simplifies things: one charger setup, one inventory of spare batteries, and less training for new techs.

Everything I'd read about cordless tools said to just buy the best tool for each job. In practice, I found that doesn't work well in a small company. When I tried mixing voltage families, we ended up with the wrong chargers on the wrong trucks and more phone calls than I could justify. Standardizing on one platform fixed most of those problems.

Batteries also age, and a shared platform means a tech can grab a fresh pack without searching for a matching charger. That's the kind of thing you don't think about until you're on a conference call with finance trying to explain why you need another charger order.

That said, there's a limit to my experience. Our crew is 12 people. If you're outfitting a demolition crew with the 40V XGT line for heavy breakers and rotary hammers, your purchasing logic is different. The right platform depends on duty cycle, not just brand loyalty.