SDS drills/chisels. Magic.

[Elder]

Bought one of the Aldi SDS 1500watt drills last year "because you never know when it will come in useful".

Well, today it did. Instead of spending hours with a bolster and hammer trying to break it free of where it was cemented to the floor and the soil pipe, I was able to remove an old outside toilet bowl, cut back the soil pipe, cap it, cement it in, in less than 30mins.

Fantastic. I now have the start of some shed space. Just need to remove the back wall from the toilet, through into the coal hole, and brick up old coal hole door space using the old bricks.

I guess the SDS is going to come in useful again.

The outhouse roof is beams/slates, there is just the dividing wall between the two parts. Is there any reason why I can't go floor to roof opened up, or am I going to need to leave some of the bricks up there and put in a wooden beam?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Elder saying something like:

And then you wonder why you put it off for so long. :)

[robgraham]

with roof timbers running from a wall head to a wall plate on the main building? If so then the dividing wall you're talking about is just that and non-structural.

Otherwise you're going to have to give us some more info. Either way you really need to look at the top of the dividing wall and see if it does anything - that is, is anything resting on it ? Rob

[Elder]

Yup. I figured it would be a dirty long smelly messy job. Moved in, in February, lost job beginning of this month.

Figured it was time to tackle it as things couldn't get much more shitty.

[Elder]

OK, "Shed" is at the bottom of garden, originally every house would have had one, some people have already either converted or remove theirs.

Roof is pent, Tallest wall is the back wall of the yard. Shorter wall is inside garden/yard and forms the front.

One side wall is the divider between properties, the other has the door in it.

Inside the structure is a full height single thickness brick wall tieing the front and back wall together.

Roof beams run from the higher to the lower wall and are slated on the outside.

[NT]

piccies please

NT

[Doctor Drivel]

Until it burns out. Don't abuse or used it for sustained heavy work. Quality does matter with SDS'.

[Lobster]

...and then the cheap'n nasty one breaks down, and having sampled the wonders of SDS you buy yourself a decent one [BTBTGTTS] ;-)

David

[Elder]

Oh yeah I know, but with a 3 year warranty I plan to make use when needed. Only had it 6 months, so plenty of opportunity to make use before it is throw away time.

Came amazingly equipped for I think the £50 I paid for it, even with a little pot of grease, and instructions for when to grease/oil the bearings and a good selection of carbide tipped bits/chisels and for an extra £10 another box of bits and chisels in different sizes.

[Elder]

For the amount of stuff I do, Aldi stuff isn't that cheap and nasty. Generally their corded power tools are a step or two above really nasty stuff and decent for a DIYer.

If I was trade, it would be Ryobi, Makita, Bosch, DeWalt all the way, but I'm not making profit from my tool investment so they will have to until I'm a but more wealthy.

My last investments were at Argos for their Challenge brand hammer drill and angle grinder, and a cheap Skil corded jigsaw. All three are still going strong after 10 years of occasional (but fairly heavy when used) use.

[Elder]

Not much good with Flickr but can you see this set of images?

[John Rumm]

Its a well rehearsed and plausible defence of budget tools, but in some cases it means you actually miss out on far more than you anticipate. A SDS is a good example. The three killer differences between most of the cheapies are the weight, the speed control, and the chisel rotation lock.

Many budget tools are 5kg rather than 2kg. This is fine if breaking out a floor, but rapidly becomes tiring when chasing walls or removing tiles, and is less conducive to working from a ladder etc.

Many budget tools have no speed control at all, or failing that a fairly crude one. This removes the possibility of very delicate chiselling when starting chases, and cutting neatly round back boxes etc.

The chisel rotation lock on many, either does not exist, meaning that the bit is free to rotate making cutting a straight line difficult, or limits you to one pre-set position making getting the tool into position harder.

(there are also safety issues to consider like many budget tools lacking a clutch - but that is a separate issue)

Indeed, and you may get the same from your SDS - just the range of tasks for which you can use it will often be smaller than with a machine with a little more finesse.

[Elder]

Oh sure, I fully understand that. At the moment it does what I want, and like I said before it was a "I'm sure it will come in useful" purchase like so many tools are for a DIYer. Quite rare to think "Oh I'm doing job x so I will need Y" apart from maybe odd sized bits or screws and plugs once you have a basic stock of hand and power tools.

[Geo]

addition (grey bricks and white mortar) inside - which does not seem to be tied in. Is that the dividing wall?

[Elder]

Yes, back of the main section is the dividing wall that separated the toilet area from the coal hole area. Cistern and flush pipe were fastened to the dividing wall.

Goes straight up to the roof section, all brick to the roof and there are no roof timbers crossing horizontally across the space.

[Elder]

Don't worry, stored safely for when I have to call the support number.

[The Medway Handyman]

I think thats a very fair accessment for DIY use. Similar to the view I had before I turned 'pro'.

Having 'any' SDS drill was a bonus!

The luxury of doing this stuff for a living means I now have the kit I always wanted. I could never justify it for DIY use, but I can for business use.

[Elder]

Yeah, my brother does property maintenance for several companies for a living. His tool cases are stuffed full of DeWalt, Hitachi and Makita.

But even he has the odd bit Aldi stuff at the back of the box for those just in case moments.

[PeterC]

Same philosophy for me: the SDS from Lidl is 2 years old, has been used about 4 or 5 times and has done the job. It's just useable in 1 hand for small holes and goes into a concrete lintel that a combi or mains drill won't touch. If it packs up, I might get a good one as the 3-year guarantee involves sending it back - that'd cost more than the thing's worth!