New drills

Bosch, DeWalt, Fein, and others ... just make sure it is a professional rather than a DIY unit - for example Bosch blue - Pro, green - DIY. And is SDS really essential? you could spend £200 - 500 on one whereas a decent standard chuck drill that will do the occasional brick can be £120 and do the SDS drills comes with an alternate chuck to take round shank bits?

I personally like the feel of Bosch and don't like DeWalt or Makita, a friend loves the feel of DeWalt but not Bosch ... so, make sure you handle the various drills before you decide.

 

Not sure if they still have them available, but just bought a Bosch Blue 18v li-ion with 3x1.5AH batteries reduced to £80 from B&Q

http://www.diy.com/departments/bosc...bi-drill-3-batteries-gsb18-2li/1267516_BQ.prd

It's much lighter than my old AEG NiCad

 

I have a DeWalt DCD 995 which is the top end of their non SDS drills. It is a world apart from the cheaper ones that I bought just to get batteries and a charger. With Bosch blue drill bits I don't need an SDS drill for average fixings.

Most of the mains SDS drills that can take a standard chuck are very heavy or lighter weight and inaccurate when you fit a standard chuck adaptor. Unless you want to do breaking, chipping or large diameter drilling you would probably be better off with a good quality standard drill and an impact driver to put screws in.

One of the things that has recently been brought home to me is the importance of local service centres, quite a few of my hardware shops are dealers not service centres. Which means if there is an issue they can't deal with it but they have to be sent away. One new tool I bought at the start of February I have only had two days use out of as it has been repaired and in transit most of the time.

I would check what dealers are service centres near you and base your decision around that since most of the standard names DeWalt, Makita, Bosch etc. will do a good job for you.

 

A very good drill, got the Bosch GSB 18-2-Li Plus,mine came with two 3Ah batteries, used with Bosch multipurpose bits, available singlarly or in sets, I can't fault it,has a led light,nicely balanced.
Our host has it with a single 4Ah battery.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-gsb-18-2-li-plus-18v-4-0ah-li-ion-cordless-combi-drill/7434k

http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-multipurpose-drill-bit-6-x-100mm/26900

 

Makita guy here...top of the range 18v Makita hammer drill which does most things. I also have a brushed (cheap end) 18V Makita driver for big screws, and a cheap Wickes SDS drill for when I need that. Horses for coarses you might say

 

Most of the jobs around the house I can do with the 18v Bosch drill, my bigger sds drill is seldom use nowadays.

 

Same here; impact driver, combi drill with a good set of bits. I have a Festool cordless SDS that I won last year, I used once, A DeWalt SDS 18v that came as part of a set, still has the polythene bag on it. My mains SDS rarely used.

 

The batteries charge fairly quickly, & I have a collection of batteries 3Ah & 5Ah, plus a odd 2Ah, which lasts ages before it needs charging.
The Li-lon are far superior to the old Ni Cad, I think you be surprised how good they are now.

 

Just going off what I see around Makita is the favorite, some De Walt, the engineers use Milwalke or Panasonic, Festool is great but expensive.
If you have an 18V combi just buy a cheap SDS for the odd times when you really need it.

 

Makita fan here. I'll add my 2 pence to the SDS drills.

I have the Makita HR2630 110v and the DHR202Z 18V SDS, both are brilliant and I've nothing to complain about. I use the 18V one most when doing quicker/smaller jobs. The mains one comes in when to play when doing repetitive drilling or lots of chiselling.

I used the 110v recently one to take out a 5 by 6ft (ish) wall because the titan breaker is too heavy to hold upright for a long time. It didn't struggle at all, and flew through the mortar joints like a hot knife through butter. Granted that was with good quality Armeg chisels.

Drill bits, I am a great fan of Bosch. They last for a long time and survive overheating really well. Kiab recommended the Tri-jet SDS bits, and I've been using them for a few months now without complaint. You can get them in TS.

 

I've just got this drill myself seems very good on this offer. Also Bosch do £20 cash back on the drill I've just put mine through

 

ohh missed that, do you have the link for cash back? what a bargain £60, the batteries are worth way more than that.

@facilities, for most jobs the 1.5Ah is fine, also remember the combined weight is reduced to with the smaller output batteries. with 3 it's really not a problem, even with heavy going I can't see how you could ever run out of charge by just keeping swapping them out, for the work I do with it I much prefer the reduced weight, but I really don't use it all day every day

 

Wow, I'm tempted at getting this, other than I probably have enough devices for pilot hole/countersink/screwing between my Makita combi, old Erbauer and the Makita impact driver

 

Out of stock around here!

 

Yes, same here when I looked.

 

btw there were some coupons which makes that bosch drill around 65pounds,search around... You can't get anything better than that for that price.
Good drill, not top of the end, but you get 3 batteries with it which are worth that price alone.
If I would be starting from scratch I would get that drill and nothing else for that price..

However I'm heavily invested in Makita high-end range so once you chose your team you usually stick to theirs as you can use the same batteries for everything.

 

Either someone has bought the whole UK stock or B&Q are pulling a fast one.