Drill recommendation

[Royce44]

Whilst im a fan of decent tools. Ive used dewalt all my life.

Now im in an office job I bought my own drills. Took a risk on the erbauer stuff from screwfix and frankly its just as good if not better than dewalt. I have the combi, impact and hammer drill in 18v and they just go and go and go.

2yr warranty too

[bristolbaron]

I bouht a 18v Makita drill about a year ago, have just spent the last couple of weeks using my dad's impact driver.. wish I'd bought the twin pack now as the impact alone is a bugger to find at a decent price! Essential kit imo.

[BlueHave]

Can't fault DeWalt or Makita personally although even the premium 'trade' end tool brands have budget and high end ranges.

Stanley Fatmax have apparently gone to st since they merged with Black and Decker. Since learned they are the same as Dewalt

B&D - cheap rubbish suitable for hanging the old picture etc
Stanley Fatmax - Serious DIY but not everyday use.
Dewalt - Trademan using the tool most days.

I actually have an old B&D Hammer Drill bought by my father in 1998 and still Made in England and it's still working perfectly. I use it for any dirty jobs. I wouldn't expect any drill purchased today to be working nearly 20 years later.

Edited by BlueHave on Tuesday 25th July 00:38

[Murph7355]

wjwren said:

My Stanley is 1.5ah, some of the pricey stuff is 5ah - is there much difference? Not that id be buying a £400 drill for DIY, just curious.

You'll charge the latter a lot less (and be caught without charge less frequently!).

My Bosch stuff has 4ah batteries. They last ages.

[hyphen]

bristolbaron said:

I bouht a 18v Makita drill about a year ago, have just spent the last couple of weeks using my dad's impact driver.. wish I'd bought the twin pack now as the impact alone is a bugger to find at a decent price! Essential kit imo.

Check on eBay, lots of reputable new tools sellers at cheap prices on there. Buy it bare seeing as you already have battery and charger.

[SidJames]

I use a Dewalt impact driver for most things but they've combo drill for general masonry work.

Have a Cheap brand sds from b&q for £30 about 15 years ago and it does a great job for the once a year use it gets.

[alock]

Murph7355 said:

wjwren said:

My Stanley is 1.5ah, some of the pricey stuff is 5ah - is there much difference? Not that id be buying a £400 drill for DIY, just curious.

You'll charge the latter a lot less (and be caught without charge less frequently!).

My Bosch stuff has 4ah batteries. They last ages.

But for a DIY'er, 2 smaller batteries is better than 1 large battery. Just make sure you always put a flat battery in the charger and you always have at least 50% of your total battery capacity available.

With a single battery, you use the drill, put it back in the garage, go to use it again several weeks later and find it was almost flat and have to wait for it to charge.

[mcg_]

I would definitely say having 2 (or 3 with sds) drills is a big advantage.

I've just done my kitchen / toilet up, which consisted of a couple days stud work / battening. Whilst I had an SDS and a combi drill, it was a right pain switching drill bits and screw bits. An impact driver would have been great.

As with the way I do most things, I'll wait until I've struggled through a project, and then buy the tool after

[Murph7355]

alock said:

But for a DIY'er, 2 smaller batteries is better than 1 large battery. Just make sure you always put a flat battery in the charger and you always have at least 50% of your total battery capacity available.

With a single battery, you use the drill, put it back in the garage, go to use it again several weeks later and find it was almost flat and have to wait for it to charge.

I have 2x big batteries

(And have only needed to swap them once. Though I've just bought another tool which takes the same battery so the two batteries will become more heavily used).

[davgar]

Check Lidl

[mcg_]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/DIY-Tools/Makita-CLX202...

This looks good, although batteries let it down. still not bad for the money

[Toltec]

alock said:

But for a DIY'er, 2 smaller batteries is better than 1 large battery. Just make sure you always put a flat battery in the charger and you always have at least 50% of your total battery capacity available.

With a single battery, you use the drill, put it back in the garage, go to use it again several weeks later and find it was almost flat and have to wait for it to charge.

As a note, never leave a Lion pack discharged as if left for too long they can self discharge below the point they can be charged again. On the up side the self discharge is very slow so a charged pack will still have plenty to start a job while you fully charge the second pack even after several months. It is worth giving them a top up charge every six months or so.

[Andy Dobs]

I got one of these last year and would not be without it, as others have said the impact driver is really helpful as no more swapping bits all the time. 3 decent size batteries and a fast charger.

https://www.toolstation.com/shop/Power+Tools/d40/K...

[bakerstreet]

bristolbaron said:

I bouht a 18v Makita drill about a year ago, have just spent the last couple of weeks using my dad's impact driver.. wish I'd bought the twin pack now as the impact alone is a bugger to find at a decent price! Essential kit imo.

Not really. The 18v Li-Ion have always been £80ish for body only. Don't think they have varied much in three years that I have been thinking about buying one!

Hoping to move into a new house in a few months and that will be having a timber garage in the back garden. WIll be fitting out the timber garage with shelves and benches. Hoping that will be a good enough excuse to treat myself to a new impact driver along with a Evolution mitre saw.

[Mark Benson]

alock said:

Murph7355 said:

wjwren said:

My Stanley is 1.5ah, some of the pricey stuff is 5ah - is there much difference? Not that id be buying a £400 drill for DIY, just curious.

You'll charge the latter a lot less (and be caught without charge less frequently!).

My Bosch stuff has 4ah batteries. They last ages.

But for a DIY'er, 2 smaller batteries is better than 1 large battery. Just make sure you always put a flat battery in the charger and you always have at least 50% of your total battery capacity available.

With a single battery, you use the drill, put it back in the garage, go to use it again several weeks later and find it was almost flat and have to wait for it to charge.

Also, 2 smaller batteries are lighter and less bulky. Handy if you're fitting guttering up a slightly-too-short ladder for an hour.....

[dazwalsh]

Royce44 said:

Whilst im a fan of decent tools. Ive used dewalt all my life.

Now im in an office job I bought my own drills. Took a risk on the erbauer stuff from screwfix and frankly its just as good if not better than dewalt. I have the combi, impact and hammer drill in 18v and they just go and go and go.

2yr warranty too

I had my van broken into a few years back and all my makita gear gone, so as a stopgap to get me back to work I went and got an erbauer combi, impact driver and titan sds from screwfix and and I havent felt the need to replace them yet. They are remarkably solid and mine get some right stick most days. Think the combi and the impact were only 70 quid each too.

Batteries are only 20 quid to buy extras as well. I have 5 batteries for my multi tool, drills and radio.

The new ones with brushless motors are brilliant too.

Edited by dazwalsh on Tuesday 25th July 14:59

[kambites]

What on earth do people do that impact drivers get so much use? I'd say <25% of my cordless drill usage is for screws and generally speaking the problem I have when using it is that it's too powerful so it tends to countersink the heads straight through whatever I'm screwing into unless I get the clutch setting right; I can't imagine what would need more power!

With respect to which drill to buy, I got a Makita LXT drill (metal gearbox, brushless one, I can't remember the model number) when I was building my extension and it's been flawless through a lot of abuse. On its own it's overkill for normal DIY use but I'm glad I got it because I now have a collection of about 10 different LXT tools; not having to buy a new battery and charger each time means you can basically buy professional quality tools for DIY prices. I even have an LXT lawn mower now; not having to faff about with a cable or lug around the weight of a petrol engine is bliss.

[mcg_]

kambites said:

What on earth do people do that impact drivers get so much use? I'd say <25% of my cordless drill usage is for screws and generally speaking the problem I have when using it is that it's too powerful so it tends to countersink the heads straight through whatever I'm screwing into unless I get the clutch setting right; I can't imagine what would need more power!

useful for a Victorian brick house (solid bricks)

[Accelebrate]

kambites said:

What on earth do people do that impact drivers get so much use?

My last few projects have all made good use of my impact driver:

Driving lots of screws into our chipboard floors to try and dissuade them from squeaking.

Boarding the loft using 'loft legs' to avoid squashed insulation. Reviews on Wickes suggest pre drilling the four screws holes in each leg as it's a fiddle to get the screws in - I had no issues using an impact.

Replacing our bathroom floor with 25mm ply before tiling - lots of extra noggins in the floor to reduce any flex with big screws, lots of screws driven through the ply into the joists. Extra studwork in the walls to take cement board in the wet areas, lots of screws then driven through the tough 12mm cement board.


I'm sure I could get by without an impact, but I'd be drilling a lot more pilot holes and applying a lot more pressure for each screw. I think my bare Makita unit was all of £60 - well worth it!

[kambites]

I wasn't so much querying the need for an impact driver, just surprised anyone would actually use one more than their drill.

If nothing else it's nice to have an impact driver simply so you don't have to keep taking the drill bits out of the drill to do up screws.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 25th July 16:32