Tell me about your cordless electric drill...

[ampere]

Which one?!

DH and I want one and have been advised to not look less than 18v. We want a smallish one (ie not one of those serious hammer drills you see eye-candy, shirtless carpenters carrying!) as it'd be for small, lightweight projects around the house. We can barely hammer a nail in straight so we aren't talking Major Construction here!

Ideally I'd like to spend up to £85.

An ideas?

bump?

It completely depends what you want to do with the drill...obviously drill, but if you aren't particularly heavy DIYers and you just want an 'electric screwdriver' for flat packs then your requirements are different to if you want to put up shelves. If it's the latter what material is your wall made of? Brick requires a min 18v drill with hammer action btw.

Personally I love my Ryobi although it's getting old now and needs new batteries (which are £50ish each) the drill new with 2 batteries was only £100 so you see the dilema later on too.

Putting up shelves but into wood batons, perhaps, but not brick. I don't want a hammer drill BUT I need more than an electric screw-driver.

If that's all you want it for then any piece of cheap tat will do the job, you don't need an 18v drill to drill wood! Alternatively use self tapping screws?

But don't you sort of get what you pay for? I've seen some nice Bosch ones for about £80, 14volts and quite light.

I am a bit reluctant to go for a £25 Chinese one, but thanks for the advice re 18v.

Ofc you get what you pay for, but spending lots of money on a drill for occasional small jobs just seems a waste. It is entirely your choice but from what you've said a 'value' drill will do you. Be aware that on top of the cost of the drill you need the drill bits, IME get better quality drill bits as they are a pain when they break!

DH has a set of two Makita drills which are FAB but ££

If you can buy from www.screwfix.com they have excellent aftercare - he bought a plastering drill which conked out a year later but was used heavily every day and they replaced it no quibble! Then the new one conked out as above after 10 months and they replaced it again - free delivery over £50 and quidco cashback too if you do that.

If you can get Makita, I recommend them.

....and if you get a set of two drills, you can do that robot walk/drill noise with every step thing. Which I do every time DH asks me to pass him the drill as he stands up a ladder and rolls his eyes at me. Obv an added bonus.

Oooh I love makita...er...some women like shoes some like power tools! I also like dewalt [drools just a little emoticon]. Plastering is what's killed my ryobi batteries, so depressing.I agree Screwfix are great and reasonably priced, your DH has good taste MamaG.

Have I stumbled across a whole new, yet hidden world of Adult Entertainment? Power tool seduction??!

It has always been a regret of mine that we didn't HAVE woodwork/metalwork at my school (girls grammar, circa 1973!). I know you can do adult evening courses now (wanna fondle my Black'n'Decker?) but the ability to turn a flat piece of wood into useful things would be great! To see a bedroom and know that within half a day you could have a built in wardrobe in there; to go to Wickes and get the raw materials and MAKE stuff!

..sigh..

AND YOU CAN DO THE ROBOT WALK!!

Do you get to wear a hard hat??

I got dh one about 8 years ago. He got so fed up with it that we got a corded one.

Problems:

The battery always needs recharging within 5 minutes of starting a job {grin]

No matter what voltage it says it is, it will probably only believe it's 12v and won't work any harder than that.

DP would say get a DeWalt -pricey but excellent.

I think the cheapest is about £100 but they go up to around £500!