15 Menards Home Improvement Products You Didn't Realize Existed

Menards is the third-largest home improvement big-box store in the United States, after Home Depot and Lowe's. The company's history stretches back to 1958, when founder John Menard started constructing pole buildings to finance his education. The company grew rapidly, and six years later, in 1964, Menard opened the first Menards store to provide building materials to the community.

If you live near one of the more than 300 Menards stores located in 15 states across the midwest United States, you can find home improvement products from hand tools to power tools and everything in between. In addition to tools, you can find building materials and even groceries, office supplies, and more in larger Menards stores.

In addition to the usual suspects, Menards has a collection of more niche, but still useful, products that could take your home workshop to a new level. Here are 15 things you might not know you can find at Menards.

No matter what home improvement project you're working on, safety is key. Part of success is having the right tool for the job, but you're asking for trouble if you don't also have the right safety equipment. For most jobs, that means safety glasses or a hard hat, and watching your fingers when using power tools. But if you're doing anything more than a few feet off the ground, you should consider investing in a safety harness to help prevent fall injuries.

Safety harnesses have straps made of durable, high-strength polyester and polypropylene that strategically wrap around your body to keep you safe. Then you clip yourself to an anchor point, and if you fall, the harness and attached tether will catch you and safely distribute the force. You might end up with a few bruises, but that's better than hitting the pavement.

The Guardian Fall Protection Safety Kit is intended for roofers and comes with a roof anchor, but it can be used for anything that takes you off the ground. It also has a shock absorber and is adjustable to fit bodies of different shapes and sizes.

Home improvement and DIY projects have a tendency to generate a lot of dust, and some kinds of dust can be harmful to your health. I have an air scribe, which is a form of a modified engraver used to chip away stone to reveal fossils. It creates a significant amount of rock dust that you don't want to breathe in. A respirator and a dust collection system are recommended for safety.

Most home improvement projects aren't making rock dust, but the principle remains, whether you're dealing with sawdust, metal shavings, or something else. The Dust Deputy 2.5 Deluxe Cyclone Separator Kit from Oneida Air Systems connects to just about any shop vac, provided it accepts 2.5-inch hoses.

The five-gallon bucket increases your shop vac's collection capacity and extends the life of your vacuum by collecting dust and debris before it reaches the filter. Because the bucket is semi-transparent, you can also see how much dust you've collected, so you know when to empty the bucket.

Drill bits are some of the most common tools in anyone's toolkit, and it's important that they are sharp enough and functional enough to do the job. But over time, your drill bits are bound to suffer some wear and tear. They'll get dull, and they might even break. A drill bit sharpener lets you refresh your drill bits so you can get back to work without having to buy new ones.

The Drill Doctor 500X Drill Bit Sharpener is compatible with drill bits between 3/32 inch and 1/2 inch. You can expand the capacity to 3/4 inch using an optional chuck attachment. You can sharpen drill bits to either 118 degrees (the most common) or 135 degrees, and the Drill Doctor accepts drill bits made of various materials, including steel, carbide, masonry, and more.

To use the Drill Doctor, just place your dull or broken drill bit into the chuck, set your desired angle, and tighten everything down. If you want to watch your progress, you can color the tip of the drill bit and wait for it to be completely ground away. Place the drill bit into the Drill Doctor and turn it slowly until it's sharp.

A power drill can be used to drill holes and drive screws, but that's not all it can do. With the right attachments, a drill can also make cleaning surfaces a whole lot easier. The 32-piece Tool Shop Drill Cleaning Kit comes with a variety of brushes compatible with a power drill. Despite the name, the kit doesn't clean drills. It uses a drill to clean just about anything else.

The kit includes brushes of various shapes, sizes, and materials. You'll find flat brushes, angled brushes, stiff brushes, and soft brushes. You'll also find wool pads, sponge pads, eraser pads, and more. Attaching a brush and pulling the drill trigger sets it spinning at high speed. It can help you clean up messes in the workshop, reaching deeper than you could by hand with much less effort. The kit also comes with a plastic storage case to hold the brushes when they're not in use.

Home improvement is usually about working with your hands, but sometimes hands aren't the right tools for the job. Sometimes you need an artificial hand for reaching into hard-to-reach or gross areas. This grabber set features three different grabbers, each with its own unique function.

The Flexi-Grabber 1000 Series has a 33-inch green grabber with a couple of strong magnets for picking up ferrous materials. It has a 32-inch red grabber with an LED light for illuminating dark crevices. It also includes a 22-inch drain grabber featuring a bunch of tiny claws you can use to pick up small objects or pull things out of sink and tub drains.

Whether you're picking up grimy or oily workshop debris, grabbing stuff from hard-to-reach shelves, or trying to fish your car keys out of a sewer grate, this trio of grabbers can help you do the job.

A hot knife is about as close as you can get to a lightsaber without going to a galaxy far, far away. Instead of a glowing weapon from a more civilized time, hot knives are made of a slim piece of metal that heats up, connected to a heat-resistant handle.

Hot knives are designed to cut and seal materials at the same time, so you get a clean cut without fraying. The Tool Shop 150-Watt Heavy-Duty Hot Knife features a narrow metal strip connected to an electrical source. When a current is passed through, the metal resists and heats up to a high temperature.

When cutting nylon rope with a conventional knife, you often end up with frayed threads that want to unravel. A hot knife, by contrast, seals the threads together at the same time it cuts. You can use it to cut foam, EIFS (exterior insulation finishing system), ICF (insulating concrete form), nylon rope, webbing, and other synthetic materials.

If you've ever wanted to brand something, but you don't live on a cattle ranch, this is your chance to try it out. The 24-piece Walnut Hollow Number & Symbols Hotstamp Set includes numbers 0 through 9 and a collection of various symbols, including an asterisk, ampersand, musical note, ribbon, star, heart, arrow, and more.

It can be used on a wide range of materials, like wood, leather, cork, denim and other fabrics, and paper. You just attach the desired stamp to your hot tool and turn it on. Electrical resistance heats the stamp to the desired temperature, then you carefully press it onto your material until the image is burned into the surface. How hard you have to press, and for how long, will depend on the material you're stamping.

Make sure you have a stand to hold up your tool so you don't burn your workstation, and remove stamps from the tool using pliers to avoid burns. Let them cool off in a heat-resistant container until they reach room temperature before handling them with your bare hands. You want to brand your materials, not your skin.

Have you ever wanted to carve your name or art into something? This Cordless Engraver Pen lets you write on pretty much any material, and the writing is permanent. It's a battery-powered cordless engraving pen that works on a wide range of materials, including metal, glass, stone, wood, and more. Just push the button to start it up and lightly press on your chosen material to leave a mark.

You can put your maker's mark on your latest DIY project, leave a message under the carpet for the next people who move in, carve your name into your tools so no one can steal them, and more. If you can use a pen or pencil, you can probably use this handheld engraver without too much trouble.

The engraving tip is coated with diamond particles so it can stand up to most materials you're likely to encounter, and it comes with replacement tips right in the box. The handheld cordless engraver runs on two AA batteries, which you'll have to provide yourself.

By the time you've finished a home improvement project, you've probably dropped more than a few screws, nails, staples, and other metal debris. Of course, those aren't the sorts of things you want to leave lying on your floor. A stray nail through your shoe could send you to the emergency room for a tetanus booster, to say nothing of the pain.

A magnetic sweeper makes workshop cleanup more efficient by letting you pick up loose bits of metal quickly and easily. The Tool Shop 30-inch Magnetic Sweeper is, as the name suggests, 30 inches long, so you can cover a relatively large portion of your garage or workshop with each pass. It has 50 pounds of magnetic pull, which is more than sufficient for tiny metal odds and ends. The handle telescopes to adjust the length up to 44 inches, and there's a quick-release handle that drops all of the collected debris for easy disposal. You can also pair it with other magnetic gadgets to round out your collection.

An inspection camera turns your home workshop into a secret spy base. You can use one to see around corners and peer into places you wouldn't otherwise be able to see inside. It's great for looking inside walls, ventilation ducts, and other tight or inaccessible spaces.

The Rothenberger Flexible Inspection Camera extends up to 35.5 inches and delivers a real-time image to a 2.4-inch color LCD display built into the handle. Image resolution is 480 x 234, and you can optionally connect it to an external monitor with the included RCA cable. The camera head is waterproof, so you can use it to inspect plumbing or water heaters, and it's useful for plenty of other tasks as well. The camera is surrounded by four LEDs to help light the way in dark areas. The camera uses AA batteries, so you can take it on the go and inspect whatever you need to, even if electrical power isn't available.

Anyone who regularly does home improvement or DIY projects knows the old adage, "measure twice, cut once." Getting accurate measurements is crucial to the success of pretty much any project.

For decades, the main way people have measured long distances is with a tape measure. That still works, but it has limitations. If you're measuring a large distance, you might have to measure, mark, and measure again because your tape measure is too short. By contrast, the Leica D2 Bluetooth Laser Distance Measurer uses laser light, as the name suggests, to measure distances and provide a digital readout. It's accurate to within 1/16 inch and has a range of 330 feet, making it more versatile than most common tape measures.

It features a backlit LCD display to give you a clear readout in various lighting conditions. The device sends a laser beam toward an object in front of it, like a wall. The laser light then bounces back to a receiver on the device. Because the speed of light is constant and known, the return time can be used to accurately measure distance.

Infrared thermometers are for more than just checking for a fever. In fact, the Masterforce Laser Infrared Thermometer is not intended for use on humans, but you can use it to check for leaks in your insulation or inspect electrical panels for hot spots, among other uses.

Light exists along a spectrum of wavelengths, of which we can only see a fraction. The portion of the spectrum we're capable of seeing is commonly called visible light, but there are other kinds of light, including ultraviolet, X-ray, infrared, and others. Our eyes can't see those wavelengths, but our machines can. Infrared light is light emitted by warm and hot objects, so measuring it gives you a good sense of an object's surface temperature.

This thermometer can measure temperatures between -40 and 986 degrees Fahrenheit, and it's accurate to within 2%. A button lets you switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and the readings show up on a backlit, 2-inch, four-color LCD display. And the whole thing is powered by a single included 9V battery.

Moisture is typically something you want to control. We want water in our pipes and in our glass, but if it starts seeping into your roof or walls, it can cause big problems for your health and your pocketbook. Additionally, the moisture content of freshly cut logs can be as high as 200%, and wood typically needs to be dried considerably before it can be used for construction.

As the name suggests, the Tool Box Moisture Meter measures the moisture level of various materials. It has a pair of probes for measuring moisture in wood, drywall, and the environment. Moisture meters work by paying attention to the electrical properties of water. When you stick the probes into wood or another material, the probes send a small electrical signal and watch how that electricity behaves. This allows the tool to indirectly measure the moisture content.

You can use it to see if wood is dry enough to use or if there's rot or water damage in your walls. It's powered by four LR44 1.5V button cell batteries (watch batteries) and sends measurements to a digital LCD display. Readings are accurate to within 2%.

When you want to clean an underfoot surface, it's important to have the right tool for the job. A broom and mop work well on hard floors, while a vacuum is best for carpet and rugs. If you need to clean your backyard, there's a tool for that too.

Yards have a way of collecting debris that you have to pick up by hand or with a rake before you can mow the lawn or safely play outside. A lawn sweeper simplifies and speeds up this process to save you time and backache. Check our guide to things to know before you buy a lawn sweeper.

The Ohio Steel 42-inch Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper sweeps a large area of your yard with each pass. You connect it to a tractor, four-wheeler, or other vehicle and pull it behind you. A spiral brush sweeps up fallen leaves, grass clippings, pinecones, sticks, and other yard debris, then kicks it into a storage bag with a capacity of 22 cubic feet. When you're finished, there's a pull rope that empties the hopper from the seat.

Wagons might be culturally associated with childhood, but they are a useful tool in any workshop. The MAC Sports Double Decker Wagon has a main storage compartment and a shelf underneath, so it can carry even more of your tools and materials around the workshop. When the weekend comes around and you head out to a game or a campsite, it can carry your cooler, snacks, and other supplies just as easily. It even has two mesh cup holders for your favorite beverages.

The wagon has an alloy steel frame for extra strength and a carrying capacity of 150 pounds. Importantly, it's not intended for carrying people, even if they're under the weight limit. The rest of the wagon is made of durable polyester fabric that resists damage and is easy to clean.

When you're done, it collapses down to just 8 inches thick and stores in an included carry bag with an adjustable handle for easier transportation.