Home Depot Father's Day Sale Picks: Grills, Tools, and Backyard Gear Worth a Look

Introduction

The Home Depot Father’s Day sale covers a lot of ground: pellet grills, pizza ovens, griddles, cordless power tools, riding mowers, and window air conditioners. Not everything in the flyer deserves your money, but a handful of items stand out as genuinely strong buys if you know what to look for. This rundown walks through the highlights, calls out the trade-offs, and points out a few cases where a competitor store has the better deal.

Grills and Smokers

Pellet grills anchor this year’s sale, and there are two clear contenders. Traeger has its Pro 575 at $500 and a larger model at $700. The number refers to cooking area in square inches, top shelf included, so 575 is honestly not a big grill. It is a solid machine, but consider the alternative before committing.

That alternative is the Pit Boss 850, which offers 850 square inches of cooking space with hammer-tone paint, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth for around $500. It is worth noting that the people who originally started Traeger went on to found Pit Boss, so the pedigree is there. Traeger does still get the nod for pellet quality; Traeger pellets are generally the better pick over Pit Boss pellets.

On the charcoal side, a basic offset-style charcoal smoker at $200 is a fine starter box if you just want to experiment with smoking. For propane, a four-burner grill with one side burner is a decent starter unit for basic burgers, dogs, and the occasional chicken. That said, Lowe’s has a five-burner model for only $50 more, which is worth weighing before you buy.

Pit Boss 850

The Pit Boss 850 is the value pick in the pellet category: more cooking area, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and a hammer-tone finish, all at roughly the same $500 price as the smaller Traeger. If raw capacity and connectivity matter more to you than brand loyalty, this is the one to look at first.

Aura 12 Pizza Oven

The Aura 12 pizza oven lands at $300, and it has two genuinely smart design choices. First, it is propane-powered and heats up in about 20 minutes, which is not bad for this category. Second, and more importantly, it has a rotating cooking stone, so you are not constantly shoving the pizza paddle in to reposition the pie. These ovens cook a pizza in roughly one to three minutes depending on heat, and since the flame sits at the back, that rotating stone is a real game changer. There is also a small chamber on top where you can drop in wood chips to add a smoky, wood-fired flavor.

Weber 3-Burner Grill

Weber’s three-burner propane grill sits at $600 in this sale. Weber builds dependable backyard grills, and this one suits anyone who wants a well-supported brand for straightforward grilling rather than smoking or specialty cooking.

Masterbuilt 767

The Masterbuilt 767 is essentially the charcoal-lover’s answer to a pellet grill. Load charcoal or lump charcoal into the side hopper and it feeds down into the heat box, giving you the kind of precise heat control you normally get from pellet grills, but with real charcoal flavor. Word from people who have used it is positive, and it makes a lot of sense for anyone who prefers the taste of charcoal but wants easier temperature management.

Griddles

Griddles are the other big backyard category in this sale, and the pricing gap here is striking.

Loco 500 Smart Temp Griddle

The Loco 500 smart temperature griddle is priced at $500 for a two-burner unit, which is hard to justify. For that kind of money you expect more burner coverage than two zones, and there is a clearly better value sitting in the same category.

Blackstone 36-Inch Griddle

That better value is the Blackstone 36-inch griddle, widely available for $297 with a metal cover. Blackstone essentially started the whole 36-inch griddle category, and at this price with the hard cover included it is the smarter buy by a wide margin. An Amazon deal on the same style of griddle has ended, but this one is just as good, arguably better with the cover included.

Power Tools

Ryobi Days is still running with plenty of buy-one-get-one offers, and the tool aisles carry some strong deals across several brands.

Ryobi 40V Outdoor Line

Within Ryobi Days, the standout buy in the one-tool-plus-three-battery kit is the brushless impact driver; it is genuinely excellent and the clear pick from that group. The $200 kit with three batteries, a charger, and one tool is also reasonable, with the brushless circular saw or reciprocating saw being the sensible choices. On the 40-volt side, the blower kit at $179 is a solid performer and significantly quieter than gas models, the string trimmer at $269 is an absolute beast, and the 20-inch self-propelled mower with a 6Ah battery and charger at $449 is a great deal. If you are torn, its near-identical cousin from the same parent company sells for $384 elsewhere, which is worth considering.

Milwaukee M18 Fuel

Milwaukee is running buy-one-get-one offers, including a combo kit with two 6Ah batteries and a dual charger that handles both M18 and M12 packs. The M18 Fuel hacksaw and the compact brushless 3/8 impact are the strongest picks here, with the inflator a reasonable buy if you actually need one. Packout storage deals stack on top: a $1 organizer with qualifying storage purchases, a $50 crate, a $164 three-door system, a $250 cooler, and a $139 rolling box. Milwaukee stock was noticeably picked over in store, so the accessories and storage side may be where the real value remains.

DeWalt Atomic 20V

The DeWalt Atomic 20V line is full power in a compact size, essentially what you would get if a 20V XR and a 12-volt tool had a baby, and it runs on standard 20V batteries. The Atomic brushless combo kit is $120 or $169 depending on configuration, and the multi-tool and pruners from this line are also well regarded. DeWalt’s 20V Max brushless two-tool outdoor kit, which bundles a string trimmer, blower, 4Ah battery, and charger, is a strong package. A 6Ah FlexVolt battery sits at $250 and the 21-degree framing nailer kit with battery and charger is $439. One note: the crossline laser here is weaker than the Bosch alternative available for around $100 elsewhere.

Makita XGT 40V

Do not dismiss the Makita display as ordinary 18-volt gear; this is the XGT 40V platform. The blower is fantastic, the trimmer is a monster, and the combo kit pairing a hammer drill with an impact driver, two batteries, a charger, and a bag is a great deal for buyers already shopping in this tier. It is a lot of money, but the performance justifies it for the right buyer.

Outdoor Power

Riding mowers are where the value question gets interesting.

Murray Riding Mower

The Murray riding mower with a Briggs & Stratton engine in the 19-horsepower range is a solid, if unexciting, entry point. The Briggs & Stratton engine is dependable, though not the most refined thing on the market. By contrast, the electric riding mower option at around $5,000, an 80V brushless unit with a 10Ah battery promising power equivalent to 21 horsepower, is a tough sell. Electric outdoor equipment is genuinely appealing, but for riding mowers the value is not there yet; a comparable gas tractor with a Kawasaki engine would leave more than a thousand dollars in your pocket.

Home Comfort

Air conditioners are one area where the in-store price tags deserve scrutiny.

Midea U-Shaped AC

The Midea U-shaped window air conditioner is the standout in this category. The U-shape design keeps more window light and pushes the noise outside, it is an inverter unit, and it is a smart AC you can control with a remote or your phone. An 8,000 BTU model is $400 at Home Depot, but it is typically cheaper on Amazon. Midea consistently earns some of the highest ratings in the category, including top marks from Consumer Reports, and the inverter design saves money over basic compressor units in the long run.

Toshiba AC

Toshiba’s window units start around $450 in store, which is not a chance worth taking when the 5,000 BTU model sells online for about $140. That online price is genuinely good. Larger Toshiba units appear at $389, $299, and $459, and while Toshiba makes a decent AC, it is nothing to write home about compared to Midea at these in-store prices. If you need something immediately, the online pricing is the way to go.

Buying Advice

A few patterns emerge from this sale. First, check competitor pricing before paying full in-store sticker on anything generic; the air conditioners and the five-burner grills are textbook examples of the same product being much cheaper or better equipped elsewhere. Second, favor brushless over brushed at this tier: a compact brushless kit at the same price as a brushed one should not even be a decision. Third, watch battery platform economics. Running outdoor equipment on your tool batteries works, but those batteries have limited recharge cycles and are a consumable, so dedicated 40V or higher-voltage outdoor platforms tend to make more sense for heavy seasonal use.

Conclusion

The strongest picks here are the Aura 12 pizza oven for its rotating stone, the Blackstone 36-inch griddle over the pricier Loco 500, the Ryobi 40V mower and trimmer for value, the Midea U-shaped AC over in-store Toshiba pricing, and the brushless combo kits from Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Makita depending on which battery platform you already own. Match the purchase to how you actually cook and work, and most of these will hold their value as well-used backyard and shop gear.