Have you ever had to buy a drill? If so, you will have noticed that it’s not a simple case of walking into a tool shop and asking for one.  If you have tried this then you would have probably been bombarded with a great many questions that you can make neither head nor tail of.

I’m going to try and clear a few things up for you, so if you do ever find yourself in a situation where you need to buy a drill, you know what to look for and not only will you understand the questions, you’ll be asking a few yourself.

Firstly, there are different types of drill.  The image that you conjure up in your head when you think of a drill is more than likely a Combi drill or drill driver but different drills do different things.

What are you using the drill for?

If it’s just a drill to have around the house for DIY work, I suggest getting a Combi drill which is a very good all-round drill. But if you need it for something in particular, then you may need to give it some more thought;

Masonry

If you are intending to do any heavy duty masonry work (repointing, for example) you will need a hammer drill.

SDS and percussion drills are fairly similar in abilities, however the main differences between the two are the drill bits they use and the hammer action.  SDS drills use different drill bits; it has two slots on the top of the drill bit shaft, which the percussion drill doesn’t.  And although the percussion drill has hammer action, it does not have the ability to have a hammer action without rotation, which the SDS does.  This makes the SDS ideal for pointing and chiselling.

Combi drills do have a hammer action setting (the ability to pound the drill bit in and out whilst spinning) and can handle a fair amount of masonry work but it drains batteries fast and I’ve seen a few too many Combis that have burnt out when people have pushed it just a little too far.

Screwing

Then the Impact Driver is for you.  Impact Drivers are specialized for driving in screws. They have the highest torque (a measure of the power of the rotation) but only buy one if you feel like you are doing lots of this for a long period of time because honestly, they’re not really meant for much else.  Having bought one myself I have to tell you that they are really fantastic though, and if you’re just drilling into wood then you shouldn’t need to drill a pilot hole.

Drilling Holes

If all you are doing is drilling holes whether into wood or masonry then the Drill Driver is for you. However, it’s highly unlikely that you’re only ever going to want to drill holes, as you will probably want to drive in some screws as well, or have a bit more control over your drill, which the drill driver does not give you the ability to do.

The main advantage to the drill driver it the fact that it tends to be smaller, lighter and cheaper then the other drills, so it may be handy as a backup, or as something to carry around instead of lugging the bigger heavier ones, but there isn’t really a lot else going for it.

A combination of things

You’ve probably guessed that the best drill for this type of work is a Combi drill.  A Combi drill is the most commonly bought drill , it has different torque settings plus drill and hammer action and sometimes has speed settings too. And it can be used for screwing too, thought it doesn’t have the same torque as the Impact Driver. It does have more torque than a drill driver and many of them come with a 3 year guarantee as long as you register it within 28 days of purchase.

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Now we’ve established which tool is best for the job, we have a number of other things to factor in to your drill purchase.

Corded

If you want a corded drill you need to know whether you want a 110 volt or a 240 volt drill.  This does not affect the power of the drill.  You will need a 240V if you are plugging it in a normal three pinned UK socket.  If you are using a transformer, you will need a 110V.  If you get the wrong one, it will be glaringly obvious as soon as you open the box, because 240V is a normal three pinned plug and the 110V is a bright yellow round plug that is essentially useless to anyone without a transformer.   The voltage doesn’t (or shouldn’t) affect the price, usually there’s just two versions of the same drill with different voltages.  If you happen upon a drill that’s only got a 240V version then be wary, this often means it’s a drill made for DIY’ers and isn’t up to a tradesperson’s job, steer clear of these.

Cordless

I will now teach you the magic of batteries. Unfortunately many people, including some tradespeople, do not know much about batteries, so I will try to enlighten you:

There are a few different types of battery, the main two are Ni-Cd batteries (pronounced: Nigh – cad) and Li-Ion (Lithium ion).

Ni-Cd and NiMH: Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are the ‘old style’ batteries. In short avoid them. In long: they are bigger, heavier, contain toxic heavy metals which create hazardous waste and suffer from something called ‘memory effect’ (where if you don’t wear the battery out before charging then you will get less use out if it before it runs out of energy).

Li-Ion: Lithium ion batteries are the ‘new style’ batteries, they are more efficient and don’t produce hazardous waste.  They also don’t have the ‘memory effect’ (these batteries are now used in phones and laptops).  You just need to fully charge before the first use and you’re ready to go. On the downside, the process used to make these batteries is more expensive so you will have to fork out a little more for these but most stores are phasing out the old style batteries anyway.

BATTERY LIFE

Most people don’t even notice that batteries have an Ah measurement, but it is a way of telling you how much charge the battery can store, and therefore how long it will last.

Ah = Amp hour:  Most cordless drills run at 1 Amp with average use so the Ah measurement on a battery tells you how long your drill will run for with that battery.  It’s rare to see anything below 1.3 Ah (1.3 Ah = 1 hour 20 mins of run time under ideal conditions) or above 5 Ah (5 hours under ideal conditions).  The higher the Ah of a battery, the bigger and heavier it will be, but the longer it will last between charges.

How many

It’s also worth thinking about getting two 2.0Ah batteries instead of one 4.0Ah, for example, because in theory they will last the same amount of time – however when you run out of charge with the 2.0Ah you can put it on charge and carry on working with the other battery. But with the 4.0Ah one you’ll have to have a very, very long tea break whilst it charges.

How long

Batteries have an average charge time of between 30mins-1 hour, when buying a drill it should tell you this on the box / description.  DeWalt tend to have longer charge times and Makita tend to have the fastest and other brands sit in between.  Having spoken to a DeWalt representative on this subject I’m told that DeWalt batteries are 99% charged in the first half hour but the last 1% is ‘trickle charged’ so as not to cause damage to the battery.

Voltage

Contrary to how corded drills work, the voltage does affect the power in a cordless drill.  You can get either 18V, 14.4V or 10.8V in Combi, Impact and Drill Drivers and I’ve seen a 36V SDS drill before.  I advise sticking to the 18V because even though they are more expensive, they are more powerful and you can often find some good deals.

The Big Brands

You can get some really good deals by buying own-name brands from big home improvement retailers but I wouldn’t recommend it.  I’m of the mind that if you buy something good then you won’t have to buy it again – and if everyone thought and shopped like this then horrible  brands that produce cheap rubbish would not survive and there would be less in landfill and more in our pockets. But that’s just me.

Try and go for something marketed towards tradespeople because these products are usually made of stronger stuff. Also aim for something advertised as ‘brushless’ as these will last a lot longer too.

My personal favourite is DeWalt, so I’m a bit bias. Any of the following brands have fairly good reputations (of course they aren’t limited to these, these are a few that I know of).

DeWalt, Hitachi, Bocsh, Milwaukee and Makita (though some firms have stopped stocking Makita recently, due to the sheer number of faulty products).

How much?

Spend as much as you can afford on a combi, ideally around the £250 mark, same for drill drivers. Impact drivers cost more so aim for the £350 mark. SDS and hammer drills aim for around £150 for corded and £300 – £550 for cordless.

If you need more than one of these drills, in particular the Impact, Combi and Drill Driver, you will save money by buying multi-packs.

Stick with one brand, so don’t just consider the price, consider the interchangeable batteries within brand and voltage (i.e all DeWalt 18V cordless Power tools with Li-ion can swap batteries).

Many of these brands come with 3 year guarantees on their drills, however, please be warned, you must firstly register your drill with the manufacturer within 28 days of purchase and this three year guarantee does not cover all parts of the drill. Specifically the accessories are not covered and the chuck is sometimes only covered for 3 months. However spare parts can easily be bought if it’s a big brand or you should have a local repair shop near you who can help (for a fee).