Budget SDS drill advice

adamr7747 · 4 Oct 2011

Hi All,

I'm about to do some renovations on my house and am going to need an SDS drill for drilling a couple of holes in 2' thick stone rubble walls. I've never used an SDS drill before, but it seems if I get a 3 function one, I can also use it for removing old plaster, lifting quarry tiles and maybe a bit of chasing (though I'm planning on getting this Erbauer wall chaser too). So, can anyone recommend a good place to start? My budget is £50 - £80 ish.

I've found this Titan one for £60 on Screwfix, with some positive reviews. Any opinions?

Also, does the bit for my long holes matter? Can I get away with a £20 eBay job, or do I need to fork out £60 on a branded bit?

Thanks a lot,
Adam

merlin50 · 5 Oct 2011

screwfix remove most of the bad reviews.

streetlighter · 5 Oct 2011

I would recommend blue Bosch for an SDS i picked up a GBH18-2 on eBay for £69 it dont have a roto-stop for chisel work but i only wanted it for drilling.
For DIY use any of the cheap own brand drills should be fine for a couple of holes a year, just always buy good quality bits.

tinytom · 5 Oct 2011

hi, search ebay for duratool sds, i got one buy it now for 25 quid, roto stop, spare brushes and 7 chisels and bits, i only got it for knocking down a wall with the roto stop because ive got makitas for drilling but its that good that ive started using it more often for drilling aswell, might be cheap but ive give it all sorts of punishments and its still working perfectly

tom

timbo46 · 5 Oct 2011

tinytom said:
hi, search ebay for duratool sds, i got one buy it now for 25 quid, roto stop, spare brushes and 7 chisels and bits, i only got it for knocking down a wall with the roto stop because ive got makitas for drilling but its that good that ive started using it more often for drilling aswell, might be cheap but ive give it all sorts of punishments and its still working perfectly

tom

I'm on my second one of these drills, they are great for the money, it's the same as this; http://www.screwfix.com/p/direct-power-bs26s3-5kg-sds-plus-drill-230v/58494 Prices vary a lot, I paid £10 for my current one in a sale at asda.

^woody^ · 5 Oct 2011

Good luck with the wall chaser inside a house

adamr7747 · 5 Oct 2011

timbo46 said:
tinytom said:

hi, search ebay for duratool sds

Click to expand...

I'm on my second one of these drills, they are great for the money

Thanks, I did look at this one, but ruled it out based on it being too heavy and not having a safety clutch...

Cheers,
Adam

adamr7747 · 5 Oct 2011

merlin50 said:
screwfix remove most of the bad reviews.

Huh, is that true? If so it's a massive shame. The reviews are the best thing about Screwfix - it was annoying when they changed the site so you can't order by rating etc now

Can anyone recommend another decent tools site with lots of user reviews?

Adam

Deleted member 174758 · 8 Oct 2011

adamr7747 said:
Hi All,

I'm about to do some renovations on my house and am going to need an SDS drill for drilling a couple of holes in 2' thick stone rubble walls. I've never used an SDS drill before, but it seems if I get a 3 function one, I can also use it for removing old plaster, lifting quarry tiles and maybe a bit of chasing (though I'm planning on getting this Erbauer wall chaser too). So, can anyone recommend a good place to start? My budget is £50 - £80 ish.

Hi Adam

Yes. Forget the no-name Chinese Titan, even a Ryobi ERH-710RS at £74 is a better bet - and you can get spares should you need them. I used the 650 watt 2-function version of this drill as my every day site drill for 3 years until I sold it to get a better drill (heavier 3-function Metabo).

I'd also suggest that you rethink the wall chaser option and simply go for the Armeg wall chaser bits for the SDS. These work well in composite blockwork, soft brick and soft stone, but not engineers brick or granite. As someone else implies wall chasers generate huge amounts of dust, even if you hook them up to a vacuum cleaner. The guys who chase out for a living use a special industrial fine dust extractor (£500 or more). Used with a domestic shop vac or the like you'll find the vac blowing clouds of fine dust out the back because the filter elements are too small and not fine enough. If you are living in the house you'll be cleaning the dust for the next 2 years........... I'd also suggest making up a temporary polythene barrier wall around your work area to contain the dust when chasing out. It will probably take you longer than doing the chasing but it will help domestic harmony!

I tend to use branded bits, e.g. Bosch, deWalt, etc because they seem to last longer and drill more cleanly. But then I make my living out of it

xdave · 8 Oct 2011

adamr7747 said:
merlin50 said:

screwfix remove most of the bad reviews.

Click to expand...

Huh, is that true? If so it's a massive shame.

Unfortunately it is true. I have submitted over a hundred reviews to Screwfix over the years and they have never published one that was overall rated as 1 (they don't do zeros).

In one case I had to order replacements for an item five times because each one arrived faulty*. Despite other people subsequently reviewing about the same problems with essentially the same wording as mine, because I rated as 1 mine was not selected.

* Manufacturing faults, not shipping damage which is another story. I've lost track of the number of tins of paint I've scraped off the contents of the massively oversized box it was sharing.

To test out their reviews approval process I tried rating a hook eye with 5 for everything, and claimed they were so good that I used four of them instead of concrete piers to build my house. Completely ridiculous stuff. The review was published within minutes. The item shortly when into clearance though so they obviously didn't value my feedback very much.

Until screwfix give you the option to PM the reviewers to ask questions the best you can do is check a reviewers other reviews to try and judge for yourself if they are balanced or not.

With branded tools Google is the best way to get real reviews. You'll often find links to tradesmen forums where these very discussions take place.

flameport · 8 Oct 2011

Rather than that bulky and heavy wall chaser, you could buy this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/makita-9555nb-5-240v-angle-grinder/40020
for far less.
Obviously you need to make 2 cuts, but this doesn't take that much longer.

There will be dust - tape the door(s) to the room closed and open the windows. Obviously wear respirator and face mask.

Those Armeg efforts are fine when they are new, but they blunt very quickly. As they are £30 each, any quantity of chases quickly gets very expensive.

Deleted member 174758 · 8 Oct 2011

flameport said:
Those Armeg efforts are fine when they are new, but they blunt very quickly. As they are £30 each, any quantity of chases quickly gets very expensive.

Agreed, but the OP is a DIYer. And Armeg chisels are resharpenable. They also make a h*ll of a lot less mess than any grinder or chaser which is why we use them on occupied properties

adamr7747 · 8 Oct 2011

JobAndKnock said:
adamr7747 said:

Hi All,

I'm about to do some renovations on my house and am going to need an SDS drill for drilling a couple of holes in 2' thick stone rubble walls. I've never used an SDS drill before, but it seems if I get a 3 function one, I can also use it for removing old plaster, lifting quarry tiles and maybe a bit of chasing (though I'm planning on getting this Erbauer wall chaser too). So, can anyone recommend a good place to start? My budget is £50 - £80 ish.

Click to expand...

Hi Adam

Yes. Forget the no-name Chinese Titan, even a Ryobi ERH-710RS at £74 is a better bet

Looks good

. I've got a couple of other Ryobi tools which I like so I'll probably go with that. There are "refurbished" ones on eBay for £60 which I might investigate...

I'd also suggest that you rethink the wall chaser option and simply go for the Armeg wall chaser bits for the SDS. These work well in composite blockwork, soft brick and soft stone, but not engineers brick or granite.

That does look cleaner and probably cheaper (as I'm only doing a small amount of chasing). Thanks for the pointer

.

The trouble is, I need to do one 1m chase through my concrete floor and I'm guessing the chisel wouldn't work? The logic for getting the wall chaser is precisely because I thought these were supposed to be much better at containing dust than just using an angle grinder (I've got one), as suggested by flameport.

Adam

Deleted member 174758 · 9 Oct 2011

adamr7747 said:
The trouble is, I need to do one 1m chase through my concrete floor and I'm guessing the chisel wouldn't work? The logic for getting the wall chaser is precisely because I thought these were supposed to be much better at containing dust than just using an angle grinder (I've got one), as suggested by flameport.

Hi Adam

It sort of depends on the quality of the concrete, really. As to angle grinder vs. wall chaser I made a faulty assumption that you'd be getting hold of an angle grinder with the option of a full enclosure for wall chasing (deWalt and Metabo certainly make these for their tools) rather than use an open wheel angle grinder. But, and it's a big but, if you use any type of grinder or wall chaser it will generate massive amounts of extremely fine dust. The dust is so fine that most industrial vacuums can't even handle it - these tools need a very fine extractor, the sort used for sanding drywall, to be useable in an occupied property. Fortunately they can be hired. On most larger sites these days (i.e. the ones run by bigger outfits rather than cowboy builders) if you use a wall chaser you have to use a fine dust extractor. Work in a hospital or doctors' surgery and you also have to work behind a dust curtain. We do this for reasons of cleanliness which nmost housewives well understand

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Budget SDS drill advice

merlin50

Deleted member 174758

Deleted member 174758

Deleted member 174758

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