Independent buying guides
For homeowners doing their own jobs who need the torque, bit size and safety rule before buying. Each guide answers one question, costs the tool per job with a visible formula, and dates its sources.
Each one answers a single buying question.
Formula, units and assumptions shown on the page.
Each with the date the link was checked.
Free-licence images, photographer credited.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Chuck size, clutch, battery platform and whether you need an impact driver instead. The four drill decisions that still matter in year ten.
Photo: Tony Webster from Laramie, Wyoming, United States · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Price divided by jobs is the only comparison that works. Why a drill costs about $1.00 a use, a rotary hammer $22.00, and where renting wins.
Photo: Tony Harrison from Farnborough, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Safety
ANSI Z87.1 side protection, the OSHA noise duration table, and why a sequential trigger halves nail gun risk. The published figures, with their sources.
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Andrew Ryan Smith · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)
Compares buying the tool against hiring it, for the number of jobs you actually have.
buy = tool price + consumables per job x jobs - resale value; hire = hire rate per day x days per job x jobs; break-even jobs = (tool price - resale) / (hire cost per job - consumables per job)
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
1
Photo: Tony Webster from Laramie, Wyoming, United States · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
1
Photo: South Australian government photographer · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
The method that changes the result.
0
Photo: Tony Harrison from Farnborough, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
1
Photo: Tomas Sennett · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: Rosenthal, James W. Related names: Swan, Jack · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
0
Photo: Quichot · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
