Festool as point of differentiation

[slalom]

I have been watching for used Festool products in on line classified adverts. I have noticed that a number of people advertising services as custom builders, renovators and custom cabinet makers are mentioning Festool in their adverts as a point of differentiation. I have never seen that with another brand. Here is an example.

All our interior jobs are done using the German-engineered Festool system, which allows us to capture virtually all the micro dust produced by cutting and sanding in dedicated HEPA dust extraction units. This way, we can all breathe easy and greatly reduce the amount of airborne contamination that the remodeling process can generate.

And another
Taping and Plaster Repairs -Dust Free Sanding by Festool!
Finally
I work with both residential and commercial clients to create beautiful living spaces. I work exclusively with the Festool dust extraction system, so cleanliness and dust management is second to none!

Three advert, three different contractors in different cities. We know that there is something special about Festool, but now it seems that customers do too!

 

[leakyroof]

Yes, I think the general public awareness of Festool in general is far more widespread than when I bought my first sander and CT in 2004.

 

[Lbob131]

Some will see adverts  like that  a bit  corny and  platitudinous.
Though having  recently  availed myself  of  festool  vacuuming  and sanding machines  I  can  see where  they are coming from.

 

[peter halle]

It has always surprised me that we haven't heard or read more about contractors pointing out the advantages of primarily a reduced dust situation when working in homes or places of business.  It is a real benefit that comes with a cost to the contractor.  There is a phrase that is used in boilerplate contracts that is "broom clean."  Going beyond that - which is a defined extent - is a benefit and comes with real costs.  Costs that should be passed on to the consumer either as part of the base price or as an extra.

Business is business.

Peter

 

[AlexThePalex]

Yes, I think the general public awareness of Festool in general is far more widespread than when I bought my first sander and CT in 2004.

And even when they don't know about it, it still sounds impressive. "Oh look, they use some special brand to contain all the dust, they must be a good company".

This really works.

 

[RussellS]

The examples you give are all dust collection.  Not really Festool specific since other companies also make HEPA compliant dust collection.  Kind of like a butcher saying all the meat they sell meets FDA regulations.  HEPA and FDA rules being equal.  But Festool the brand has gained some notoriety due to being used on THIS OLD HOUSE television show.  Kind of like a mechanic advertising that they only use Snap On or Matco tools to work on your car.  Everyone knows those are professional tools, not home mechanic backwoods hick wrenches.  So maybe Festool is similar to Snap On.  The brand name signifies excellence now.  Kind of like if you play a Stradavarius violin. You had better be a G-d Da-ned excellent violinist to even pick up one of those violins.  If you say "I play a Stradavarius violin".  No one is even going to question your playing ability.  If you play a Stradavarius, then you know how to play.  Period.  Maybe if you use a Festool, then you know how to cut wood.

 

[ear3]

I'm pretty sure I have gotten some additional gigs in the art installation world just on the basis of someone seeing my toolkit.

 

[jeh]

I'm pretty sure I have gotten some additional gigs in the art installation world just on the basis of someone seeing my toolkit.

I doubt it. If you do good work then you will get hired.

 

[Holmz]

The "system" would imply integration, rather than differentiation.
(Maths, you gotta love it)

 

[Holmz]

I'm pretty sure I have gotten some additional gigs in the art installation world just on the basis of someone seeing my toolkit.

[eek] [eek] [eek]

 

[tony_sheehan]

I remember working in a house in Corsica a few years back, before I'd ever even heard of Festool. While I was there some flooring guys came to lay the new living room floor; they were from Germany and pretty much everything in their inventory was Festool- systainers, carts, ct's, the works: it just looked amazing. I'd never been so impressed in my life!
No only that, but the standard of their work was phenomenal  (this floor featured lots of curves, pillars and various other "obstructions"). So I can kind of see what Edward means when he says he's gotten some additional gigs

 

[ear3]

It wasn't just an aesthetics issue, I'm sure.  Dust reduction is at a premium in these sorts of environments.  I was on the other side of that some years ago, when I lost a regular gig at an art gallery after I had to flush trim about 100 feet of MDF edging for a display case I was building (this was in the morning on the day of the opening) -- they had to delay the opening by an hour to clean the MDF dust from everything.  Even if I had realized at that time there was such a thing as dust collection on a router (this was back in 2005), the one I was using didn't have those capacities.  I still get sick thinking about it.

I remember working in a house in Corsica a few years back, before I'd ever even heard of Festool. While I was there some flooring guys came to lay the new living room floor; they were from Germany and pretty much everything in their inventory was Festool- systainers, carts, ct's, the works: it just looked amazing. I'd never been so impressed in my life!
No only that, but the standard of their work was phenomenal  (this floor featured lots of curves, pillars and various other "obstructions"). So I can kind of see what Edward means when he says he's gotten some additional gigs

 

[Hurricane Whisperer]

I'm pretty sure I have gotten some additional gigs in the art installation world just on the basis of someone seeing my toolkit.

I doubt it. If you do good work then you will get hired.

That works for repeat business.

But how does a customer know you do good work the first time?

I think seeing someone who invests in quality tools is a good sign.

 

[six-point socket]

Hi!

From a business standpoint it's a smart move to jump on the bandwagon and use this free advertising that TV-Shows and maybe even Festool itself generate.

A couple of years ago, here in Germany, you wouldn't find a single home makeover show that didn't feature at least one stack of Festool systainers noticeably being rolled or carried into the work site on screen. And then during work a kinda lengthy (considering the rather short segments per task they air) close up of a Festool tool or two, especially popular for that, the plunge/track saw. But I've seen specialities like the Planex in combination with a vac, too. And don't forget that they make everything look so professional, easy and clean on this shows - that's what sticks to a lot of people's minds. (Even though we all know that there have been complaints about the work done and it not holding up to the promises made on these shows, but that doesn't spread at the same rate as the show's finales)

So why not work with this when a brandname like Festool becomes a mainstream synonym for professional, clean and excellent workmanship?

Add Festool brochures that always picture extremely clean work sites with a hint of luxurious environments and very dapper models/contractors.

If you, as a contractor and your work can life up to that expectation fully or at least partly - why not benefit from it?

The reality however is, speaking solely for Germany here, that there are only very few fully Festool/Systainer/Sortainer-System equipped contractors. During the time I've hired professionals for certain work, I've met only one who had a (company/boss paid) van with racks for tool-, accessory-, and consumable-containers. (I say containers because it wasn't systainers, but a competitors product) - and even that guy still brought a bucket with loose stuff...

The rest, they were using everything "stock": those awful cheap blow moulded (power) tool cases, a hand tool bag of some sort and most important: buckets, buckets and more buckets. Of course that meant numerous trips to the van before they could set up, some more trips to the van during work and don't ask about when they were finished and put tools and other stuff on top of the now dirt and debris filled buckets... Most of them did excellent work, I hired them because of referrals - and if they like working that way, or simply don't want to spend on a system - that's up to them.

But then again, I look through the pictures of the very nice and extremely great taken care of vans and workshops shown around here and I get the feeling I would hire anyone from here just to see the whole system in action during work. Of course, let's not forget the awesome projects being shown!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Woodwork Wizard]

I always mention I have dust extraction on all my tools whenever I give quotes for projects I'd really like to do and I really think this makes a good first impression. In fact, now I think about it I can't think of one person I've worked for who hasn't been very impressed when they've seen it all working. That maybe because I will always go out of my way to show them that there's very little to no dust, it's brilliantly organised, how quickly and accurately things can be done, that I can carry two stacks of 3,4 or 5 Systainers in one go - this list could go on and on.
All this helps get me more work. Happy days...

One more thing - I've been doing woodworking of many kinds for many years and I've never been this passionate about my tools. I guess it's a Festool thing...

 

[JimD]

I think you are giving the general public too much credit.  I think all they hear is the emphasis on dust collection and they like that.  My wife has an unnatural distaste for dust and is holding me back from fixing the things she doesn't like about our house because she doesn't want the dust.  I caused a good bit of that demolishing a chimney without taking precautions.  We hired a new house contractor to build a new garage and do some other things and he worked like a new house contractor.  That didn't help either.  So she wants things done with dust barriers and other steps taken to minimize dust.

Using a Festool with a HEPA filter would not be enough for us.  If you make a cut on the edge with a track saw, lots of dust escapes.  The Kapex dust collection is great but still dust escapes.  You need barriers to dust migration too.

But a remodeling contractor that will avoid spreading dust all over the house is attractive.  How he does that isn't as important as that they do it.  Festool enough isn't good enough if they know anything.  It will help, a lot, but you also need to block the residual from spreading. 

 

[Michael Kellough]

I think you are giving the general public too much credit.  I think all they hear is the emphasis on dust collection and they like that.  My wife has an unnatural distaste for dust and is holding me back from fixing the things she doesn't like about our house because she doesn't want the dust.  I caused a good bit of that demolishing a chimney without taking precautions.  We hired a new house contractor to build a new garage and do some other things and he worked like a new house contractor.  That didn't help either.  So she wants things done with dust barriers and other steps taken to minimize dust.

Using a Festool with a HEPA filter would not be enough for us.  If you make a cut on the edge with a track saw, lots of dust escapes.  The Kapex dust collection is great but still dust escapes.  You need barriers to dust migration too.

But a remodeling contractor that will avoid spreading dust all over the house is attractive.  How he does that isn't as important as that they do it.  Festool enough isn't good enough if they know anything.  It will help, a lot, but you also need to block the residual from spreading.

It isn't enough to have tools that take dust extraction into consideration by design. You have to observe how dust escapes and take further steps to coral it.

In the example above, trimming an edge, you simply have to place an equal thickness board alongside the one to be trimmed.

 

[Wonderwino]

I had to refinish an oak bar in a restaurant several years ago.  The old finish was worn through, blistered or solid in some areas.  I used my RO-125 in rotary mode with 60 grit paper to remove the bulk of the old finish.  I then worked through the finer grits in orbital mode and switched to the ETS-125 for the finest grits, all using my Midi for dust extraction.  There was absolutely no cleanup needed!

Another project involved building a printer cabinet for a friend who gave me a pile of old lumber from a Hoosier cabinet to build it with.  The boards I used for the interior shelf was warped, but I had to use the 100 year old wood.  I laid a flat piece of MDF on the bottom of the shelf to create a flat surface to reference the domino on.  That created a straight line of tenons which was easy to mate with the sides.  Very accurate and a real time saver when working with difficult material.

Even though this is just a hobby for me and I'm really not looking for work, I've had other people give me jobs after seeing and hearing about the work I am able to do with my Festools.

 

[Grakat]

Hello all

I have been sanding and repainting the interior rooms of a house over the course of a month, all on weekends. The people I was doing the work for were paranoid about ending up with a mountain of dust from when they had a section of their ceiling repaired years ago. All they could recall from that experience was the white dust over absolutely everything.

They were very impressed when I came in with the sander and dust extractor and started sanding without leaving dust anywhere. I'm sure it saved me time too as I was able to get straight into the masking and painting without having to worry about the dust. I can see the benefit of having decent dust extraction from all angles.

On the flip side I had a guy do some work on an engineered solid surface benchtop a few years ago. He rocked up with his CT26 and his OF1400, however the dust hoods were all missing, so his "system" was to tape the CT hose to the router with electrical tape. Needless to say it didn't work and there was dust everywhere.

 

[fixit]

Hi All,

I always include references to my dust collecting systems with links to suppliers videos etc in my quotes, having invested in some reasonably expensive kit I want to shout about it.

I do a lot of painting, communal hallways in apartment blocks and also renovation works to apartments following water damage, fire etc. residents and block managers love the "no dust" idea and I have won contracts on that basis, not from being the lowest price.

I have a mix of Mirka and Festool equipment, Mirka Deros and extractor, Festool RO90,RO150,RTS400, CTL Midi,Mini and SYS