My Bosch corded drill finally packed up yesterday after about 15 years home DIY use.

I need a new one for the usual DIY stuff, drilling brick, occasional concrete, but more often than not drilling or screwing in to wood.

Bit of looking suggests £80/90 for the kind of corded drill I have had, but would I be better going cordless these days?

If cordless I assume no less than 18v?

What would you recommend?

Ta

If you’re looking to replace a corded with a cordless, and be realisticly able to drop into brick and stone, you’ll need something with more grunt than you’ll get for that much cash. My equivalent cordless is a £400 Dewalt and even that struggles a bit with some of the harder materials. The cheaper £80 Erbauer one which feels like a toy in comparison is used only for screwing and drilling into timber.

I’d always want sds for drilling so cordless isn’t an option for that sort of money. Using standard chuck cordless drills for masonry drilling is slow and painful!

Brick/concrete and wood are 2 different drills really.
Yes, one of the 18V ones you see in Screwfix/B+Q/Toolstation et al will do everything, but I find them far too heavy for driving/pilot drilling/small things.
I use my drills for work, so spend a fortune on them, hence not really what a DIYer would do.

If DIYing now, I’d buy one of the cheap corded SDS drills for masonry/concrete, then another 10v battery drill for the smaller things.

Shopping around should get you both for less than £100.
Aldi were selling off an SDS last week for £15, maybe some stores still have them in?
Bosch 10.8 drill drivers are good, but they’d be £80ish, and wont drill masonry, but are great for woodwork/general drilling/driving.

All very helpful so far. I can see the logic in going cheaper powered, and then something more for just screwing in to wood etc.

Sorry what exactly is SDS? My Bosch had ‘normal’ and hammer and got through most brick ok…. Although drilling an outside tap did pretty much kill it about 5 years ago…

A pretty damn good explanation.

And in lamens far quicker/powerful

I have an 18v Li ion battery de walt. It’s a bit unwieldy but much more convenient than a corded set up. I also have a cheap 14v b and q drill driver which is lighter and smaller.

Copes with most diy stuff with minimal drama including block and brick (you don’t need sds for this stuff really, well not for diy). Concrete a bit more hard work but how often do you really need to drill concrete at home? For me I would rent an sds if I needed to do a lot of concrete in one go.

If you also get a sds chuck adaptor you will be able to use all your old standard chuck type bits. These won’t work on hammer tho as the adaptor doesn’t like being used in that way.
One great benefit of sds is if the drill has a non rotary setting and the it can be used as a handy little breaker also.

Get another Bosch corded one and a cordless one for non masonary work

£38 from B&Q

http://www.diy.com/departments/bosch-240v-corded-hammer-drill-psb680re-32kg/195931_BQ.prd

but how often do you really need to drill concrete at home?

It depends on what type of home you have – for instance, I needed an SDS drill to put up a picture frame as my walls are made of concrete and my otherwise excellent DeWalt 18v drill wouldn’t touch them.

Sds also makes a much cleaner hole for plugs etc.

can be used as a handy little breaker also.

Though they’re not very effective at that job. Well, the one I used left my hands and arms feeling very strange, almost as if my bones were made of hollow glass fibre tubes or something. I probably held on too tight and used it for far too long, though any less and the job would’ve taken forever. Probably a case of the wrong tool for the job in retrospect…

That £38 Bosch is as near as what I have had in the past. When I bought it years back its was about £80!

I can see the point of the SDS, but the weight and size put me off a bit. I’m not sure I would either really get the practical use out of one.

Think I might get the Bosch again, and look at getting a cordless too for screwing etc.

Yep as above cheap SDS drill for masonry. I got the titan one from screwfix. Didn’t think I would use it that much but in fact I use it all the time. I have a pair of 18v hitachis for other jobs, best value at the time I bought them. Very happy with them but I wouldn’t mind an impact driver to go with them

Had a cordless Bosch for years when it finally packed up got another. Chuck was awful, changing battery a proper pia, after a couple of months started to smell of burning, then it stopped having variable speed, made screwdriver work fun.

Recently replaced it with a dewalt 18v cordless for about £99. Came with two batteries which is essential. There is a new Li-Ion model so the nicads were getting sold off cheap (screwfix). Although the Li-Ions are not much more now. Don’t mind a little extra weight for just home DIY.

The cordless will do brick but it’s slow as hell. Bought the cheapest corded black & decker I could find for when impatient.

My Bosch corded drill finally packed up yesterday after about 15 years home DIY use.

Check the connections on the lead, failing that it’s probably the brushes or the switch, both cheap to replace. No Bosch corded drill should ever pack up, specially one only 15 years old.

EDIT : Actually I would be amazed if 15 years DIY use had worn the brushes or the switch, almost certainly the connections on the lead imo.

Sorry what exactly is SDS? My Bosch had ‘normal’ and hammer and got through most brick ok….

SDS is great for drilling into masonry of any sort, but pretty much only good for that. Even though you can get chuck adaptors for regular drill bits they’re too heavy and clumsy for any other diy jobs, and pretty much out of the question for screw driving. So if you went with an SDS drill you’d have to replace your current drill with two drills, not one. And you’d have to replace all your current masonary drill bits as well.

I’ve got one but even when I’m doing site work it hardly comes out of the box unless I need to drill particularly wide or deep holes or if the substrate I’m drilling into is particularly tough. A regular drill driver and a good masonry bit is easier and more accurate to use and works fine 95% of the time. I keep SDS on hand because I have to work in a wide variety of sites and circumstances, so its there to get me out of trouble when I need it but even when an SDS would save time it would rarely save me enough time to warrant going out to the van to get it and plug it in. It maybe comes out of the box once or twice a year, if that. If your corded drill has worked ok around the house to date then nothing about your house is going to change to make you require SDS in future.

The Bosch has lost power over the years, and yesterday was struggling to drill wood. It started sparking lots as out through the casing towards me and started smoking. Run it now and the motor makes a funny noise, and all the sparks make quite a good light show, if slightly scary!

I’m still not fully decided what to do but will buy a cordless of some sort for lighter stuff.

My father in law asked me the same question a few years ago. Ended up with a dewalt sds and a 12v drill/driver from screwfix. Fast forward to today and his drill/driver packed in after 12mth as it wasn’t getting used but the sds is still going strong.
So my advice would be sds and a cheapy cordless.

you need two drills:

a £50 SDS Titan 2kg from screwfix for masonry

a £50 10.8V bosch li-ion hammer cordless for wood/screwing

* prices above may have changed since last time i checked

Got a brand new Makita 8391 18v 1.3Ah drill you can have for fifty quid for your light, every day use. Bought it to compare against our range but it never got used. Drop me an email if you want any more details. Got the case, battery and charger with it.

+1 for the 2kg titan – it will drill a hole in anything.

After having a titan angle grinder (well 2) I wouldnt touch them again. But I suspect they buy in tools so a different type might be okay.

My 14v Bosch cordless (green, not even blue) will drill most things with decent bits. I’d have no problem with a good makita or Bosch pro 18v drill as my only drill. But I do have a cheap SDS (lidl park side) which replaced a much bigger SDS, I couldn’t justify a Bosch/makita at the time and its been fine for diy and I would rather spend more on a cordless that I will use more. Much better for general use. I think decent cordless + SDS is the perfect setup. Only thing I really see traditional corded drills being useful for is people doing lots of metal drilling and wanting to do wire brushing etc as cordless are now so good but it does depend on cost as a corded drill is going to be the cheapest for something bulletproof.

Anyone have a link to a Li-Ion drill that would be good for a bit of lite drilling & screw driving ?
Whenever I look the old “buy the biggest/bestest” has me spending hundreds on some pro level kit I probably dont need.

Milwaukee power tools all the way for me, but pricy but well worth it IMO

A long time working on site and I’ve got a load of expensive stuff I don’t use that much anymore.

But if I was buying what I would use for DIY stuff, I’d buy a cheap 2Kg SDS (with hammer/rotary stop) and a decent light 10v cordless.

Probably both for about £150 or less, and would cover all Home/DIY stuff I can think of.

This one imo takisawa

http://www.screwfix.com/p/hitachi-dv18dcl2-18v-1-5ah-li-ion-cordless-combi-drill/64945

I’ve had the same one only with a faster charger for several years now, I use it on a day to day basis.

When doing up the house I bought a Bosch standard chuck hammer drill, a Bosch SDS drill, and a Ryobi 18V cordless.

The standard chuck one stayed in the box unless I needed something to quickly do pilot holes for when I couldn’t be bothered changing bits in the cordless. The SDS got used a lot, it took two alcoves and a chimney breast back to bare brick and drilled every hole into masonry that was needed.

def “need” two drills.
your bosch died a month later than it should have, but check and see if your aldi has any of their SDS drill left – 39 quid will resolve your big hole making requirements. Add another tenner if (like me) you fail to resist metre long drill bits.
for more subtle use, a cordless drill/driver is indispensable in my view. I went with makita, but only cos they were on special. Nice bitta kit. drill/percussion and has a torque limit so you don’t over-do screws.
oh – I’ve just done the ‘recommend what I bought’ thing haven’t I?