Hammer drills - corded

[tdacon]

I need to buy a hammer drill to fasten a ledger board to a foundation for a deck. What do you guys like in hammer drills (corded only)?

Thanks, Tom

[John McGaw]

I've been using a Bosch 'Bulldog' SDS-Plus for a long time and have found it quite reliable and usable. It seems to be popular among many users and quite often when you see someone using a hammer-drill on a TV show that is what it will be. But, if you are wanting it for one job and have never needed one before, maybe you don't really need one. I realize that this will come off as heresy to some but you don't really need to own _every_ tool in existence. If it is a one-time job and you don't have any future plans for using it again, maybe you can just rent one for an afternoon. Keep mind, SDS bits are on the pricey side to buy so you need to be selective about what you get.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I like a borrowed one. I have very limited use so I borrowed the Milwaukee from work.

It works. There may be better but that is the only I ever used.

[J. Clarke]

If you need it for a one-off and don't plan to use it again, the Harbor Freight works fine. Don't know how long it will last but it will get your ledger board in for sure.

If you want a keeper the Bosch that John recommended should be a good bet.

[DerbyDad03]

It'll last a lot longer than a one-off job.

I don't know that I'd recommend one for a commercial application, but I bought a 1/2 HF hammer drill a whole bunch of years back for 2 purposes on the same one-off job:

1 - Drill holes in my garage foundation to attach mesh before parging the wall,

and then, assuming it survived,

2 - Mixing 5 gallon buckets of concrete resurfacer when I did the floor. I know you don't need a hammer drill for that, but for $35, why use my at-the-time good corded non-hammer drill?

That $35 drill is still around and it's drilled hundreds of holes in concrete, block, landscape timbers and the trunks of fresh cut Christmas trees for those spiked stands.

It's big and bulky, but it gets the job done every time. The variable speed adjustment is getting finicky - and that's being kind - but for $35, I'd probably just get another one if this flakes out completely.

[krw]

Bosch.

[-MIKE-]

Forget the hammer drill and buy a post hole digger. :-) Attaching a deck to a house is way too much work and asking for trouble. I prefer to use separate posts/footings instead of a ledger connection. Then you don't have to worry about securing it to the rim joist, or flashing and waterproofing or any of that. Also, the deck can expand and contact separate from the house.

Just my 2 cents.

[russellseaton1]

"Hammer Drill" or "Rotary Hammer Drill"? The first is a worthless piece of junk. The second is miraculous. Rotary Hammer Drills use SDS bits with c arbide tips. The regular hammer drill uses round carbide tipped bits in a regular drill chuck. The Rotary you can drill any size hole in any concret e in seconds or so. Great for attaching conduit and electrical boxes to yo ur concrete basement walls. My number one use for my Makita rotary hammer drill. My Makita is a 1 1/8" model. Around $200 retail. All tool compani es make a 1 1/8" model around $200. Mine came with a free Makita 4.5" grin der when I bought it about 15 years ago. I guess it was free.

[krw]

The deck on my Vermont house pitched up and the water ran up against the house, rotting out the rim joist. It turned into a mess because there was no real access to the "crawl" space[*]. When I replaced the deck, I made it free-standing, with about 2" between its frame and the house. Enough to run the siding down between them (before the deck was built). I did have a problem with the deck pitching again but was able to just cut sections of 4x4 off to re-level it. ;-) The frost line in Vermont can be amazingly deep.

[*] Six feet deep but only a small window, in a well, for access. I found a skinny contortionist carpenter to fix the problem. ;-)

[nailshooter41]

Never heard that. I have been using hammer drills professionally, sometime s all day long for over 40 years and NEVER knew that, and never even heard that among my fellow professionals. I have had a version of this 10 amp guy for years, and my first lasted almost 20 years on the job. I couldn't kil l it for years, the one day it just quit.

CPO had that drill on sale as a recon for $79 several months ago so I could n't resist.

I probably don't use these drills as hard as many do. I drill a lot of 1/4 ", 3/8", 1/2", and on rare occasions 3/4" holes in all kinds of concrete an d masonry. Some times as many as many as 50 a day. For anything bigger th an 3/4" though, I would switch to an SDS unit.

Even in engineered plans I don't see any requirements for attaching sole pl ates, equipment mounting plates or structural components to cinder block wa lls, or anything else that requires much more than 3/8". Since I don't do h eavy construction anymore, my SDS drill rarely sees the light of day. Don' t like the size, don't like the price of the bits, and don't like how much real estate they take up in the truck.

Personally, I would do as Ed suggested and see if you could borrow one. Ho w many holes will you be drilling? 15? 20? Hardly worth buying the drill un less you have other plans for it. If I had other projects or uses in mind I would look at the HF as others have mentioned. I had one, it lasted a da y, and the HF guys simply handed me a new one when I took it back. At 7.5 amps of power it is great for its intended purpose as well as a more powerf ul utility drill.

Oh yeah... take -MIKE-'s word on that ledger detail. It can easily be the undoing of a deck structure. If you go forward with that detail, make sure you use pressure treated for the ledge and run a bead of sealant behind th e ledger before installation. After hanging the ledger, make sure you seal the gap between the upper edge of your ledge board to the foundation conne ction point.

Robert

[tdacon]

Thanks, people. Good information.

To explain a bit, I'm working with a local woodworker and cabinetmaker who sometimes takes on bigger external projects like this deck replacement, which is just a utility deck behind my garage. He's a good friend, and we're partners in some things like a pickup, a chainsaw, and some shop tools. This won't be his first deck and won't be his last either but he doesn't have a hammer drill and kind of thinks he ought to, so I'm funding the tool for his shop and we'll first use it on my own deck replacement. I want it to be a professional-quality tool but like nailshooter he likely won't have much need to go bigger than 1/4 - 3/8 in concrete. I've owned Milwaukee, Dewalt, and Bosch myself and had good luck with them but know nothing as yet about hammer drills so I appreciate your recommendations.

I'll take Mike's word on sealing the ledger. You're talking to long-time classic wooden boat guys here - my friend is an English-trained shipwright, and I've owned a classic wooden sloop for over forty years. So we know caulk. Fresh water leaks are the death of a wooden boat.

Thanks again,

Tom

[-MIKE-]

My advice was to not use a ledger at all. I advise to use separate footings/posts and not have the deck physically attached to the house at all. If digging too close to the house is a deterring issue, then you could always put the posts 3 or 4 feet away from the house and cantilever the joists over the beam, to the house.

However, if you decide to use a ledger against the house, just do your homework first. It's not just a matter of sealing. You really need to use proper flashing that goes up under the siding and down over the ledger.

Also, look into the newer technology that uses bolts that go through the rim joists and attach to the floor joists to prevent the rim joist from pulling away from the framing.

Honestly, digging a few more posts holes is a lot less work, anyway, and then you don't even have to worry about waterproofing and ledger bolts, etc.

[nailshooter41]

That was me. Cracks, seams, gaps... all need waterproofing of some type whe n outside unless it is fencing. Part of my company is waterproofing, so I use a LOT of elastomeric caulks to seal dissimilar materials to one another .

I know NOTHING about building in Vermont, but I think styles of building de cks are probably pretty regional. For example, the county I live in is alm ost 1300 square miles (!!) so that comprises a lot of area. At the souther n end of the county there is a lot of black dirt, and pretty stable substra te. North of that is a wide band of very plastic soil that moves tremendou sly, keeping at least three hundred slab/foundation repair guys constantly busy. It is no uncommon for a house to have large sections break off and m ove away from the larger portion of the house. When I revamped my parent's house for sale a few years ago, they had a 1" separation of the back third of their house from the slab!

North of the city/county, topsoil barely covers rock. To make VA/FHA requi rements on new homes, they truck in soil from the south end of the county t o be able to meet the minimum depth requirements. Slabs are poured on top of cleaned bedrock if a engineer can determine the proper type and thicknes s of the underlying rock. Houses built on those never, ever, move.

So we attach our decks to the houses for two different reasons. First, the deck that isn't attached to the house can simply wander off into the yard over a period of years. And second, if the house is completely stable, why not? We get torrential rain here, followed by long periods of dryness, th en drought. We have no snow melts, no ice build ups, nothing that would kee p wood soaked for long periods.

That being said, I don't like the ledger detail. It is commonly used, but to me, especially considering today's inferior material quality it is a bad one. I won't use a wood ledger unless people put me in that position by w anting the lowest price on the job. I learned this while doing commercial work.

I go to one of the local welding shops and have them cut a piece of 3" angl e for me to the length I need. This is usually about 16 feet or so, and co sts me about $60. Then I have them punch 1/2" holes every 16". It always winds up with the total cost being about $125 for the piece, so I am guessi ng I am paying about $4 a hole.

I put the ledge up so it looks like a "7", so that when it is mounted the a nchors are shielded from water. After the holes are marked, I put a coat o f enamel on the angle while the anchor holes (3/8") are being drilled. I m ount the angle and set the joists on top of it, putting blocking in between the joists. I don't nail the joists to the anything to attach, like you d escription, they sit on the angle, but cantilever from the last structural beam. I do tack in the bridge block, but that's it.

I have been using that detail for 30 years, and as I said it is modified fr om a detail I used when pouring tilt panels and attached bar joists to stan ding walls. Never had that detail fail, but for some reason, I am the only guy I know that uses it. I see those damn wood ledgers up everywhere, and the structure/joists toe nailed into it. Decks built that way will fail, and some do in just a few years. I can see how that would be a worthless de tail is you had snow or ice on top of it.

Robert

[Bob La Londe]

I've got a Makita SDS Drive Rotary Hammer that does a good job in brick and newer concrete upto 1/2" with no problems. Bigger in a pinch. I used it to set all the redheads for my inner office, tire changer, air compressor feet, and milling machine.

For old concrete and large bits I've got a Milwaukee spline driver. I've used it to drive 1-1/2 holes through 80 year old structural concrete upto two feet thick by drilling a pilot hole with a smaller 3' bit, and then drilling from both sides with a 1-1/2 18" bit. Stuff I really should have been doing with a core drill.

The Milwaukee is about 16-17 years old. The Makita is 18 or 19 years old. I do have a couple Milwaukee hammers drills that are good for smaller holes as well, but the cheap bits you can usually get in the smaller straight shank sizes don't hold up very well. I was a licensed communication contractor from 12/1993 to 12/2016 so my drills aw a lot of use for running conduit, setting anchors, and fishing wire.

[russellseaton1]

Rotary Hammer Drill. Drills through concrete like butter. Good.

Hammer Drill. Pathetic for drilling concrete compared to the rotary. Usua lly cheaper than rotary so people start with this before they learn that dr illing concrete requires the rotary and SDS bits.

e:

mes all day long for over 40 years and NEVER knew that, and never even hear d that among my fellow professionals. I have had a version of this 10 amp g uy for years, and my first lasted almost 20 years on the job. I couldn't k ill it for years, the one day it just quit.

ldn't resist.

/4", 3/8", 1/2", and on rare occasions 3/4" holes in all kinds of concrete and masonry. Some times as many as many as 50 a day. For anything bigger than 3/4" though, I would switch to an SDS unit.

plates, equipment mounting plates or structural components to cinder block walls, or anything else that requires much more than 3/8". Since I don't do heavy construction anymore, my SDS drill rarely sees the light of day. Do n't like the size, don't like the price of the bits, and don't like how muc h real estate they take up in the truck.

How many holes will you be drilling? 15? 20? Hardly worth buying the drill unless you have other plans for it. If I had other projects or uses in min d I would look at the HF as others have mentioned. I had one, it lasted a day, and the HF guys simply handed me a new one when I took it back. At 7.

5 amps of power it is great for its intended purpose as well as a more powe rful utility drill.

e undoing of a deck structure. If you go forward with that detail, make su re you use pressure treated for the ledge and run a bead of sealant behind the ledger before installation. After hanging the ledger, make sure you se al the gap between the upper edge of your ledge board to the foundation con nection point.

[-MIKE-]

IMO, if the soil it too unstable to built upon, then nothing should be built upon it. :-) I grew up in the snow belt on Lake Erie, and our frost line was well below 3 feet, so I am familiar with the "crawl" effect of freeze & thaw cycles. even in cases where footers are below 4ft deep, if the footing isn't smooth, the ice can grab it and heave it upwards.

In regards to this, I find this as even more reason to not attach the deck to the house. If you do end up with a deck crawl, it's going to try to pull away from the house, causing a failure somewhere in the chain.

There are ways to anchor footings to bedrock when there isn't enough topsoil, but I've never had to deal with that. But it's important around here where the bedrock is less than a foot deep in many places and there are lots and lots of hillside building.

We almost bought a home on a hillside with a gorgeous hilltop view, but it had serious foundation issues. It was basically slipping down the hill inch my inch every year. They had spent over $30k to have pilings installed and we had the option of paying several thousands to "extend the warranty" which had already been extended about 3x with 2 extra piling installation jobs. To me the extended warranty was simply a down payment on future piling installations. I don't think that house will be there 20 years from now. Or if it is, it won't have that gorgeous "hilltop" view anymore. :-)

I like your iron ledger technique. You should send that in to Fine Homebuilding.

[-MIKE-]

Rotary drills are a whole different animal that a hammer drill. The mechanics are are much different and because of that the rotary drill produce a LOT more force than a hammer drill. It's probably 10:1 in force applied to the bit.

So you're opinion is totally valid. You also get the added benefit of being able to put percussion bits in the rotary to used as a jack hammer, etc. Great tool.

But a hammer drill has it's place and given that it's also multi-tasker, it's a valuable tool to have.

[Martin Eastburn]