Drill or impact driver: what a home really needs

What one does and what the other does

A drill-driver rotates smoothly and has a torque adjustment collar that stops the chuck when the set force is reached. That makes it suitable for furniture, plasterboard and every place where a screw is easy to overdrive.

An impact driver delivers torque in short blows along the axis of rotation. It drives a long wood screw where an ordinary tool would stall, but it doesn't regulate precision and is often too rough for soft wood.

Torque and speeds

For home jobs, 40–60 Nm of torque is usually enough. Bigger numbers on the box are mostly measured with the motor stalled and change nothing in everyday work.

More important than torque is a two-speed gearbox: low speed with high torque for driving, high speed with less torque for drilling. A tool without it drills slowly and gets hot.

• 40–60 Nm — furniture, shelves, wooden structures
• Two speeds — essential if it will be your only tool
• Hammer drill mode — for brick and silicate block, but not concrete

Battery: the platform matters more than the tool

When you choose your first cordless tool, you are really choosing the manufacturer's platform. The same batteries will later fit a saw, a sander or a hedge trimmer, while other brands' batteries never will.

For the same reason, a kit with two batteries is usually a better buy than a stronger tool with one. 2 Ah is enough for driving screws; 4 Ah makes sense if you plan longer drilling.

When you need a third tool

Neither a drill-driver nor an impact driver is suitable for a concrete wall — that needs a rotary hammer with an SDS chuck. Hammer drill mode handles brick and silicate block, but in concrete it only heats up the bit.

The practical conclusion is simple: one two-speed drill-driver is enough for a home. An impact driver makes sense when you are building a deck or a fence, and a rotary hammer when you are fixing something to a load-bearing wall.