Would a low-powered cordless screwdriver be enough for installing (thin) floor boards?

Question

I own a decent, powerful corded drill, but I've always been somewhat hesitant about cordless tools due to the potential lifespan of the batteries, and maybe also the bulkiness. (Case study: for our old Makita drill, a trustworthy replacement battery would have cost almost the price of a new tool.)

However, I need to screw thin floor boards (15 mm thickness, or 5/8") on a chipboard subfloor. The area is about 19 m2, or 200 square feet. I'll be using 3.9 mm x 42 mm screws. What's the absolute minimum of a tool that you would use for this kind of flooring job?

I am definitely going to drill pilot holes in the boards (this is fine, and a definite safety measure, since the boards are so thin). This is no issue with even a hand drill.

For screwing, however, I am thinking of a 7.2V one or even a 6V one, with AA batteries.

That laste one, by Black&Decker, appears to be a contemporary version of the AS6NG, which I found to be praised on Youtube.

I often prefer silence over power, so I would probably also test out something like an oldschool ratcheting screwdriver, but these appear to be impossible to find in my country.

There's also the Stanley Fatmax Speed Drive.

I wonder if, in practice, I should actually ditch the idea of flooring with these low-powered tools in the first place? Maybe I'll just end up burning the engines, so I would need to buy something like a 10.8V (or more) battery tool anyhow.

so, I guess, the more general point of discussion for the Stackexchange database is something like -- can you actually do serious repetitive work (like flooring) with something like a 4-8V battery screwdriver, or even with manual tools? Maybe this is just nostalgia, but I often think whether we are actually overusing power (especially battery powered) tools in our times.

Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions!

Answer 1

If you are actually going to buy one, 14v 5A 40Nm minimum spec for a drill driver for floor boarding. Two batteries at least. Buy high spec batteries so you can charge one by the time you flattened the other, unless you really like tea breaks.

Nothing powered by AA batteries will be any good whatsoever for jobs heavier than taking the screws out of computers.

I can't understand a word on that video, but that Fatmax looks like a toy. [& I just looked at the other links. Nope. Not those. Toys. Don't walk away from those… run.] Unless you already have arms like Popeye, you'll have just one like him by the end, if both the tool & your arm lasts the job.

You actually want a 'drill shape' driver for 200-screws-an-hour floorboarding, not a 'screwdriver' shape. You get a lot more leverage & a lot less Popeye.

^{I oughtn't to be sexist, Popeye or Rosie the riveter...}

The ratcheting driver will pump screws all day, every day & outlive your grandchildren… except your arm will fall off in 30 minutes. They're for people who do this all day, every day… or used to be, before we had drill-drivers for multi-purpose, or dedicated single-purpose collated screwdrivers & nail-guns.

Don't waste your time pre-drilling - that will take forever. You just need the right screws so you're not overstressing the board.

Now, of course this stuff doesn't come cheap. My drill-driver was £400 with 2 batteries - but on the upside it's still as good now as when I bought it, maybe 12 or so years ago. Great if you need to do this a lot. Expensive if you only need to do it once.

So, what to do?
Rent one.
If you're renting one, you don't need a multi-purpose drill driver, you can rent something designed to ram screws in all day, every day. You don't even need to pause to pick up your next screw. This is the collated screwdriver. [Collated because the screws are on a plastic auto-fed strip.]
Some are drywall spec, some flooring & some both. Some are long enough you don't even need to bend down.

Answer 2

I have a drill that's in this class - a Black and Decker BDCD8C, its 8V, USB chargeable (so in theory I can keep it topped off with a power bank), and while I love it to bits, I cannot imagine drilling a large number of holes with one of these. Also looking at the specs, its supposed to only really be able to drill up to 20mm of wood. Your screwdriver is probably worse, and will likely chew through AAs

I've used this for fairly serious assembly and disassembly with a little ratcheting bit driver when I needed a bit of extra torque but I can't imagine driving a large number of screws with this. Its comfortable. Its just not very powerful and designed for long duty cycles.

As much as I love Janky Tools - if its a one off, renting or borrowing a proper cordless drill and a spare battery and keeping one topped off while working on the other is the sensible option. Make sure its comfortable, make sure it has a little more power, and remember its a lot of screws. You might not need it after this after all.

There's also jigs that let you drill 'straight' - I believe they are called portable drill guides - which would be worth looking at if you're doing a lot of screws. You're going to get tired, they will get wonky, and it'll also help with the pilot holes.