ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JORDAN KRAUSE
Most homeowners-battling to keep up with car payments, house payments, and all the other monthly bills-simply don’t have the financial resources to purchase the kinds of professional tools and equipment needed for the variety of fix-up jobs homeownership requires.
Purchasing tools such as paint sprayers, backhoes, and pressure washers makes even less sense financially because they are only used occasionally.
Two Hillsboro businesses-The Lumberyard and Hillsboro True Value Hardware-have helped meet the need by expanding the types of tools and equipment they offer for rent.
“It’s easier and more feasible for people to rent than to actually purchase the equipment for maybe a once-a-year project,” said Terry Bruton of The Lumberyard.
Tom Koslowsky, co-owner of Hillsboro Hardware, agrees.
“Most people don’t use that type of equipment enough to need to own one,” he said. “Most of it’s well over a thousand dollars.”
Homeowners can rent a variety of tools and equipment, ranging from power nailers to power generators, carpet cleaners to kerosene heaters, drywall lifts to chainsaws.
The most popular rentals right now include pressure washers-used mostly to prepare houses for painting)-plus lawn overseeders, and rototillers.
New additions this season include scissor lifts and hot-water pressure-washers at The Lumberyard and a hammer drill, reciprocating saw, and several other construction tools at Hillsboro Hardware.
Bruton said The Lumberyard may soon expand its rental inventory, which already includes more than 60 different items, depending on how well the new rentals take off.
Koslowsky agreed that demand dictates the kind of rentals they can afford to offer.
“If you ask for certain equipment on a regular basis, then that’s what we’re going to consider getting in,” he said. “But we also have to look at whether it’s going to pay off in a reasonable amount of time.”
