Nails vs screws; which is best for your project

If you have ever worked with wood or even thought about a building project you will likely know there are two main types of fasteners used to connect wood and transform it into a structure. The two are screws and nails, which also have a wide variety of subcategories within them. There are a few distinct difference between nails and screws, from appearance to performance and actual application. To be clear this is not about which is “better” as they both have benefits and drawbacks, and will perform better in different situations.

Nails typically have a flat head and a smother body that screws, this is because they are designed to be hit or shot straight into the wood to connect two pieces. Screws on the other had have a head with some sort of notching for a drill bit or a screw driver to fit in, along with threads running in a spiral along the shaft of the screw. This is because screws are meant to be rotated into place using a drill or a screwdriver, with the threads biting into the material to create a connection. The main advantage of these screw threads is that they helping in pulling the two pieces together, sucking two boards together until the gap between them disappears. While this can be done with nails, lack of spirals means the boards will likely not be pulled together as tight.

This means screws are very strong in tensile tests, but fall short of nails in shear strength. Shear strength is just one of the reasons houses are commonly farmed with nails instead of screws. Nails are typically much better at resisting shear loads (side to side tension as apposed to in line with the fastener) and because nails are typically a softer metal they usually bend when over stressed, versus a screw that will often snap and fail catastrophically. Nails can be removed by getting under the head and prying up on them, this can vary in difficulty based on how for the nail head is buried in the material, and the thickness and coating of the nail. Screws can be taken out or reversed in the same way they were installed, this means it is usually easier to remove screws than nails. That being said if the head of the screw is damaged or inaccessible it can be much harder to remove than a nail as is it much harder to pry because of the threads. The price of screws and nails vary greatly, but you can expect to pay a bit more for screws compared to nails, making nails better for keeping the costs down, but this varies greatly depending on the exact type of fasteners you need.

These are some of the basic differences between nails and screws, within this there different type of screws such as structural screws and trim screws, the same with nails, framing nails are much different than 18 gauge nails used in finish work and these will be covered in a later post. By understanding the key differences you will be better equipped to take on new project and keep your home happy.