I've had to move up to pro tools now I do DIY for a living 6 days a week and time is at a premium, but to be honest I existed for years with cheapo power tools because they were only used once in a while.
Cheap jigsaw will cut out a sink aperture or a bit of laminate floor where the accuracy of the cut doesn't matter because of the cover up & the average DIY standard.
Cheap heavy SDS is fine for DIY because it will only get used once a month.
I'm buying Makita et al now because it's used 2 or 3 times a week, I need the instant performance & accuracy & I know it will last.
I fully appreciate your point Andy, but the average working class punter, maybe a semi skilled manual or office worker, wife with a part time jib in Tesco. existing at a lower level than you and maybe I, thinks it is great - really stylish & modern - and compared to a carpet given dogs & kids - much easier to maintain.
£15 a sq metre is luxury class for a lot of people, when they can buy for £10 a square metre - and the extra £200 you mention is a weeks income for some.
The only problem I have with laminate is that people don't associate the cost of buying it with the cost of fitting it, so I dissapoint a lot of people when I quote.
If you want a nice straight line in thick timber John, you should be using a circular saw and a guide rail :-) Even the Makita won't cut a perfect straight line in thick timber. Not far off granted, but the blade isn't wide enough to do it.
You could however cut a near perfect straight/square line with a cheapo circular saw & a batten. Not that often perhaps, but I did it for years with a 150mm B&D jobby.
So the criteria are time, performance and accuracy. I think that they are important as well - not because of doing this for a living but because for me they are all critical factors.
This was partly my point. If you are going to go to the trouble of laying a floor requiring significant labour input, you might as well do so with good materials. Otherwise it's the same false economy as cheap wallpaper.
Really? I'm surprised. I haven't bought anything makita in the UK for about a year, but have in the U.S. - cordless so identical bar the charger. All of that stuff has.
Not if it gives a couple of years (or more, laminate looks crap but is hard wearing) and it would have meant living in a 'shit hole' for even longer, sorry Andy but you are obviously completely out of touch with the reality that many live - just as you fail to understand that (IMO) most people are doing DIY not as a hobby but as a necessity to get an affordable, half decent home.
It was you who bleats about cost being all important to the virtual exclusion of all else.
I've taken a broader view.
I think that selecting products according to those criteria is important. That may mean a higher price, it may not. In general it does. That realisation may not suit you, but that's the way things are.
What nutty logic. There is something very wrong with a scale of values that suggests that putting down crappy flooring just for a couple of years. Better to wait and buy something better. The problem is really that people expect instant results and aren't willing to wait.
Oh, I'm very in touch with it. I began with very little indeed. The difference is that I did what was required to change it - tough decisions, taking calculated risks, sheer hard work and with socially inconvenient arrangements and waiting to obtain the right things. Some people feel that a 40 hour working week, going to the pub and to football on Saturdays is where things are. For them it may be. I don't recall ever having a 40 hr a week job.
You were saying?
Of course. However, that does not mean that the standard of the results has to be compromised by poor purchasing decisions.
I see both sides of this discussion. Putting something in that's "cheap" for a limited period can be a waste of money, but when the money is tight, short horizons can seem reasonable - I've been there! However, until just over a year ago, I spent cira 80 to 100hrs a week working and now have a financial security at the cost of missing out on my kids growing up and potentially of having been of more benefit to them in their adult life, if I'd had more time at home; having said that, I'm in a position to provide both with a 50% deposit for a house. What is the right course - does anyone ever know - circumstances change whilst you live!
Quite. I haven't quite done that to that degree continuously but it certainly was at times.
I'm not sure that the kids actually ever do grow up. I haven't noticed it happening yet. Therefore I don't look at it on the basis of missing out on them growing up, it's just different phases.
That will make an enormous difference, but they probably don't realise it yet.
There is nothing better than hindsight. However, I deliberately stopped doing historical 'what-ifs' many years ago and now concentrate on future ones.
I have simply sought to point out that in the purchasing of products such as tools there are many potential factors, certainly not just price or the rate of use.
In all, there are probably at least 10.
The marketing people would have consumers believe that price and gimmicky features are important and not a lot more. Some customers seem to be taken in by that.
I can quite appreciate that some people may not be in a financial position to make choices based on all of the desirable criteria. However, this does not mean that they can't or shouldn't look at *all* of the factors. It is that that the silly suggestions of "it's only for a bit of DIY" (therefore any old crap will do as long as it's cheap) seek to suggest that people limit their choices because they don't "need" something better. The jigsaw is the classic eample of that.
So I think that it's perfectly possible, even for somebody on limited means, to look beyond what others would seek to apply as limitations and to make up their own minds. It's also entirely reasonable to say that if one buys product X it will produce result A, but with product X+50% the outcome is twice as good as result A. Some people might like to choose 2A at a cost of X+50%. At least the opportunity will have been pointed out.
In the end, somebody may be totally constrained by budget and genuinely only able to buy the lowest cost item. Then the question should be one of does it make sense at all or is the result going to be so bad that it's not worth spending even that.
Either way, there is never anything wrong with looking at all of the issues and options and the results obtainable.
Having said all of that, it is clear to me from hundreds of questions and decisions concerning power tools that have been discussed in this NG over many years that the majority of people end up going for the better mid range to entry level branded professional tools. Not so many buy the high end products and not so many the bottom end either. This suggests that people do look at multiple factors when buying. Which ones varies, but I am quite sure that it's not just about price.
Try cutting a bastard mitre on the end of a 8x2" joist or a birdsmouth joint on the 6x2" rafter. Your jigsaw (Makita B12 blade and pendulum on II) will do it with no trouble at all and give a square cut - far more manageable than a circular saw in that context.
But even there it's not as clear as you make out, it all depends on what they will be doing, yes sure if they are budding (hobby) furniture makers they are going to need at least a half decent tool but if their DIY use of the jigsaw is going to be cutting out a hole for the new sink the need for very precise control of the cut is some what irrelevant.
Again, it depends on what they will be doing, I really do think that you are sometimes mistaking your hobby for another's necessity of 'doing it themselves' - what should they do in your idea of utopia, spend even more and get a man in, simply because they can't afford a half decent tool? Next you will be suggesting that people should walk or spend even more money on using PT rather than own a car made by Kia because they can't afford a Audi (or what ever)!
There is nothing you can't do with cheap hand held power tools that you can do with expensive ones of similar type. Last week I was making doors and windows using a £5 circular saw (argos: challenge IIRC) and a £6 drill (sainsburys: draper) and they were not a problem (saw is a bit noisy but the vac is even louder). You just work differently like using a cutting jig on the saw and not the rip fence (you would use the jig anyway as it is far better than any rip fence and easier to use). The drill was a bit underpowered for drilling the holes on the mortice locks but it did it.
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