Many times, people will use the wrong shovel when doing a job. If you use the wrong shovel, you could be making the job harder.

A round pointed shovel is ideal for digging into moist soil. The rounded edge slides through the dirt. A square point shovel does not work for digging. It is designed for shoveling loose dirt or moving sand and gravel.

There are various styles of shovels within the same family. For example, a garden spade is a flat nosed shovel, but it does not have the turned up or curved up sides. Standard square nose shovels have curled sides to help with the handling of the loose soil. The straight sides of the garden spade allow it to slice down into the soil like a razor.

A duckbill round point shovel looks completely different from the standard round nose shovel. The duckbill shovel is ideal for digging a nice narrow trench, that is fairly deep, if you are installing a drain line for a French drain.

Not ever spade is a made from the same material. There are some made from 18 gauge surgical stainless steel. It is rust proof and does a great job on those smaller projects.