Which cordless drill for casual DIYer

[997.1]

Hi folks

I need a decent cordless drill for everyday home DIY.

Hoping to find something in a Black Friday sale

Any suggestions for brand/model etc ?

[Mr Pointy]

There's a thousand threads on this already. Pick a brand that has the sort of tool range you need - I'd suggest Makita or Ryobi - & stick with it as any tools you buy in the future use they same battery (although adapters are available). You don't have to go 18V, the 12V ranges often have enough power for DIY work.

[PhilboSE]

Personally I would go 18V for a drill as they’ve just got a bit more guts if going into something hard.

If it’s just drill (and maybe a driver) then range of tools isn’t important band you could buy any brand from the nearest outlet and it should do normal DIY stuff.

[MDT]

997.1 said:

Hi folks

I need a decent cordless drill for everyday home DIY.

Hoping to find something in a Black Friday sale

Any suggestions for brand/model etc ?

you would not go wrong with something like this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Makita-CLX228AJ-Combo-Pac...

as mentioned before yes the 18v drill will do bigger holes quicker, I have both the Makita 18v and 12v kit and the 12v stuff is smaller and lighter to use and even when I use the 12v when really the 18v would have been the right thing just take it a bit slower and it will do the job. Might take 4 seconds longer but it's DIY stuff so what is the rush.

the above drill can be had off Amazon for £32 and you can pick up a knock off charger and battery for £28, so £60 all in and you are sorted if you want to go that route.

[Sporky]

This is a useful set - you can add an SDS head for another £95.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bosch-Professional-Cordle...

I have the 18V version as well, but don't need it very often because the 12V one does most DIY stuff. The right angle and offset heads are really useful in corners and confined spaces.

[Actual]

The best way to choose which power tool brand is to go with your favourite colour.

"Blue! No...AHHHHHHH!"

[Dunclane]

I've sold my sold to the Erbauer range from Screwfix/B&Q and found them to be more than adequate.

[curvature]

Our business uses mainly Festool which is great stuff but a bit over the top for the average DIY user.

The guys out on site use a mix of Festool, Makita and DeWalt.

My own personal set of tools for home is the blue Bosch Professional range. I have a full set in the 18v range and also the 12v drill/impact driver set that was mentioned above.

I store all my tools at the office now but keep the 12v drill/impact set at home as it does everything I need especially with the bigger 6.0Ah battery.

[Little Lofty]

What’s your budget?

[Belle427]

The dewalt 18 volt packages from screwfix will do for most really.

[Peanut Gallery]

Just had a goof beakdown of this exact question over in the "Tools you wish you'd bought sooner" thread -
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Main post in question being a short read -

leglessAlex said:

This post is going to be me answering my own question, I couldn't find this information out there and so this might be useful for someone in future. For google purposes, this post is about 12V tool weight and handle size from DeWalt, Makita, Bosch Professional and Milwaukee. There's a lot of info here most people probably don't care about, sorry!

I'm not going to talk about performance here, I don't want to get these tools dirty as I'm going to send back the ones I don't keep, I'm assuming they're all much of a muchness. I'm also assuming that if you're looking at these tools, you either have 18V stuff already and you're looking at a lighter alternative, or you're aware you probably won't be drilling 15mm+ holes through concrete with these things.

I've pictured myself holding all these tools to give an idea of relative handle size, as well as something to reference the numbers against. I have fairly small hands, ~180mm from wrist to tip of miggle finger, and a span of about 210mm when splayed. I'm going to talk about trigger girth, so that's going around the trigger and the back of the handle, and I'm going to talk about mid-handle girth, which is a point roughly a finger width below the trigger. Not particularly scientific, but it's something.

The benchmark/control for this is my DeWalt DCD778 with a 4Ah battery. I won't bother talking about it too much, suffice to say I like it a lot.

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr
Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Trigger Girth: 174mm
Handle Girth: 130mm

Okay, the line up. First impressions is the Makita and DeWalt are the same tools as the 18V in minature, the Bosch is the most compact and light despite being loaded with a 3.0Ah when everything else has a 2.0Ah, and the Milwaukee certainly feels like the most serious tool, maybe alongside the DeWalt.

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Let's start with the Milwaukee M12 FPD2.

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr
Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Trigger Girth: 170mm
Handle Girth: 160mm

There's no real way of getting around this, this is a tool for someone with more manly hands than I. The handly is very chunky, and it's the heaviest, with all that weight towards the top of the tool. I got a 4.0Ah battery with it too, but that makes the handle comically long, and doesn't really improve the balance that much in my view. Not appropriate for either myself or my mum, BUT as I mentioned earlier, this feels more solid and more of a serious tool than the others.

Next, the DeWalt DCD701.

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr
Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Trigger Girth: 168mm
Handle Girth: 126mm

This feels exaclty as you'd expect, a smaller DCD778. A noticeably smaller handle, although if this is for anyone with hands smaller than I, you might be reaching for the trigger a bit. Good weight, but of the two bottom battery tools, the head is noticeably heavier than the Makita, it's over 100g more in head weight despite being close in overall weight. I'm impressed, and might end up staying with team yellow for my 12V tools. However, speaking of being impressed...

The Bosch GSR 12V-32

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr
Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Trigger Girth: 165mm
Handle Girth: 154mm

This is a really cool little tool, and man is it little. The shortest of the lot, and the lightest by some margin. it doesn't really suffer in the torque department either, it might be well down on the DeWalt (which is a bit of a beast for a 12V tool) but very similar to the Makita. Interestingly, the trigger is very very compact, helping small hands, but the rest of the handle is fairly fat. Not as much as the Milwaukee, but still possibly a tough too much for my indtended use. All metal chuck too, despite the fact it's the lightest. In the words of Project Farm "Very impressive!!"

Lastly, the Makita DF332D

Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr
Untitled by Alex D, on Flickr

Trigger Girth: 162mm
Handle Girth: 128mm

For my intended use, or rather my mum's intended use, this is the clear 'winner' or most appropriate. It's light, extremely well balanced and the easiest to grip with small hands. It does in some ways feel the cheapest, especially compared to the Milwaukee's heft and the all metal chucks present on the blue and red tools, but I know two tradies using Makita 12V and they both think it's up to the task.

So there we have it. I don't know which I'm going to keep for myself yet. Probably not the Makita as I don't really vibe with the brand, and as much as I'd love the Milwaukee my lil hands are too small and pansy for it. It'll be between the DeWalt and Bosch Professional. I really like how compact the Bosch is, but the DeWalt has the better range. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, I hope that long ramble might be useful to someone in future!

[Chris Type R]

I favour Dewalt myself - and most of the common tools in this brand are quite reasonably priced. The less common are priced 'professionally'.

I think that Ryobi is worth a look - the tools definitely don't feel as robust as Dewalt / Milwaukee / Makita - but in my experience they're perfectly adequate for DIY use and the range is broad and affordable. Once you've bought into the battery & charging infrastructure there are a lot of gardening tools available.

[megaphone]

Dunclane said:

I've sold my sold to the Erbauer range from Screwfix/B&Q and found them to be more than adequate.

This is the correct answer. All we buy now on our firm, used day in day out. Plus they do a good garden range which share the same batteries.

[Chrisgr31]

I am slowly accumulating the entire range of Lidl cordless tools on the 20v range.

Does exactly what I want but then you cant just buy the one you want on the day you want it. Have to get them when in store!

[Lotobear]

Hitachi/Hikoki are good - had one for around 10 years and it's still going strong. Was reasonably priced ISTR.

[jumare]

I recently bought a Parkside (yes Lidl, if it's good enough for Arnold) 20v drill/driver, works fine and for occasional use can't think why you'd spend more. Also for smaller jobs B&Q are selling a Bosch small electric screwdriver for £25.

[MonkeyHanger]

Ryobi have their annual "12 Tools of Christmas" offer running right now.

https://uk.ryobitools.eu/christmas/?srsltid=AfmBOo...