The Next Tool for an Apartment Tool Kit

  The next tool that a small tool kit needs is a hand drill, I suggest a 1/2in Hammer Drill like this one.  It is cheap and will do most everything an apartment dweller or first time home owner needs.

   When you go to a tool store to get you drill there is a vast universe of hand drills available, most are cordless with key less chucks. ( go to a tool store, not your local super duper everything store, buy tools at a tool store, toilet paper at a toilet paper store)  Why do I suggest this type of drill as the one to start, several reasons:

1. A small time user is someone that drills a few holes now and then, projects like book cases and putting up shelves in the hallway etc.. A decent cordless drill is an expensive tool to have sitting around for months at a time unused.  Also if a battery drill is not used regularly the user will find the batteries flat when they go to use the tool.  Expensive drills come with fast chargers, but the cheaper drills take a couple of hours to charge. Cheaper battery drills also have much fewer inch pounds of torque.  Go corded, since the drill is a low power tool you don't need an expensive high grade extension cord either.  Besides, in an apartment there is probably an outlet chose to the task at hand.

2. Why hammer, because lots of apartments are concrete block or poured concrete.  If you want to put up a hat rack by the door you will be drilling into concrete.  The proper tool makes drilling concrete a breeze.

3.  Keyed chuck, cheaper drills don't have very good key less chucks.  Keyed chucks are nearly always metal, since they are not stylish they are better quality and so will last a life time.

   As your tool box expands your 1/2 inch hammer drill will always have use even when it is replaced by cordless drills, this drill becomes the second drill you use to drill holes while driving screws with the cordless, making it so you don't have to keep changing bits on your cordless.

   My first drill was a B&D 3/8 variable speed corded drill that I got when I was a teenager.  Hammer drills were unusual and expensive in those days. I think my drill cost about $39.00 in those days so drills haven't really gone up in price at all. It was a Christmas present and I used it for at least 30 years before it finally gave up the ghost.  I killed it using it to spin a sanding disk on a very large project.  The drill would still be here if I hadn't abused it by over working it on a continuous cycle and burning out the motor.

   There are plenty of 1/2 corded hammer drills on the market.  Generally the cheaper ones are old fashioned looking and a little bit big in your hand but this is not the tool you buy to drill dozens of holes a day, this is the starter tool you buy to drill a couple dozen holes per year.

   Remember the right tool makes the impossible, possible.