I have a 20+ year old deck behind my home. It's in great shape, but I want to refinish it this summer. Problem is, a number of the Phillips screws have popped up over the years. I have a basic Hitachi cordless drill (1050 RPM) with which I have tried to drive the screws back down, but it tends to either strip the heads or strain uselessly.
I have tried removing a few of the screws completely and putting them back in, but they get stuck in the same place regardless. Now that I think of it, I suppose I could drill the holes out deeper before putting the screws back, but I honestly don't want to go through all that bother for all my screws.
What do I need to accomplish this smoothly and efficiently? A better drill bit? A corded, more powerful drill? A high-torque drill? I'd really prefer not to spend much money on this–hence why I'm doing all the refinishing myself–but these screws are really getting in my way.
Best Answer
Lots of other good tips provided as answers so far, but the one thing no one has mentioned is that a drill is actually the wrong tool to use for driving screws. Sure, they work and lots of people use them, but the best tool to use would be an impact driver:
(source: thewoodwhisperer.com)
An impact driver has much higher torque than a drill does, and rather than using a twisting motion to drive screws, they use an impact motion. The result is that they more easily drive screws and are far less likely to strip the screw head, regardless of bit type.