A basic toolkit
Without tools, there’s not much you can do in the way of DIY. But as long as you arm yourself with the basics, you’ll be able to take on quite a range of small jobs. You could buy one of those starter toolkits from Aldi or Screwfix for £40 but the tools won’t cover all those tasks you could easily tackle. (E.g. there’s not always a stanley knife or the right screwdriver options, and there’s never a drill included.) Here’s a list of the minimum kit (roughly in order of importance):
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Pencil and Sharpie
Possibly free
There’s not a great deal to say here. Indispensable. Make sure you use a fairly good-quality pencil: nothing special but the ones from museum gift shops aren’t the best – go for a standard school-type pencil. The only thing is that you always lose your pencil, so throw two or three into the box. And keep them sharpish.
It’s also useful to have an indelible pen for marking on metal and plastic. I like Sharpies because they wear quite well and have a reasonably fine point, but any indelible pen will do.
Tape measure
£5
Get one with a metal blade. Most of them have mm along one edge and inches along the other. Inches aren’t terribly useful these days, so don’t worry if your tape measure has only millimetres on it.
Screwdrivers
£9-14
There are quite a few different sizes and types of screwdriver. One option would be to go for a set containing small, medium and large flat screwdrivers, Phillips screwdrivers and pozidrive screwdrivers (see types of screw). This’ll cost £12-13. Or it might be a better idea to invest in a set of screwdriver bits and a handle to slot them into (£9 or so). If you also get a little box of screwdriver bits, they’ll also come with a little attachment which will let you use them with a drill. This is a huge advantage and will cost about a fiver.
Claw hammer
£5
Any standard claw hammer will do. Multiple uses other than the obvious one – hammering in rawl plugs, pulling out nails and old rawl plugs, tearing boards apart, loosening stuck parts, breaking out old tiles, and so on.
Allen keys
£5
It’s not the best idea to rely on your collection of allen keys which you’ve saved from various Ikea flat packs: they get chewed up or bent very easily and you’re unlikely to have a full range of sizes. Get a set for a fiver. Make sure they’re metric sizes.
Stanley knife and spare blades
£2
Invaluable for opening packaging, sharpening your pencil, cutting up those boxes and old carpets so they fit into the bin, cutting out old sealant and more. It’s a good plan to buy a knife which has a retractable blade – much safer. And don’t forget to slide the blade back in EVERY time you put your knife down.
Drill
£50
This will cost you a fair chunk but there’s not really any way round it. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to call in a tradesman every time you want to put up a mirror, blind, curtain pole, shelf, TV bracket, shower curtain, and on and on. You’d be lucky to find a handyman who’s willing to do one of those small jobs for £25 so, after just two callouts, you may as well have done it yourself. Most drills nowadays are battery powered, and you probably want a battery of 18 volts or greater. The type of drill you need is called a combi drill; just make sure you get one which has a hammer setting (you need this for making holes in walls). Just a note here – if you see a power tool described as bare bones, that means it comes without a battery, so avoid it. Make sure your new drill comes with a battery and charger. (Batteries come in different capacities: 1.5 Ah – amp hours – should be plenty for a drill.)
A cheaper alternative would be to go for a corded drill, rather than a battery-powered one. They’re an awful lot cheaper and more powerful but sooooo much less convenient.
Drill bits
£10
The world of drill bits is a minefield. But, to stop things becoming unnecessarily complicated, you need masonry bits for drilling into brick walls. If your walls are plasterboard (how on earth am I supposed to know what my walls are made from?), its probably best to use an HSS bit (stands for High Speed Steel, by the way). HSS bits are also good for drilling into metal, plastic and wood. If you’re drilling a hole for a rawl plug, you’ll probably want a 6 mm bit (or, sometimes, 8 mm). It’s cheapest to buy just the sizes you need (6 & 8 mm masonry bits for £3 the pair and 6 & 8 mm HSS bits for £5 the pair). Alternatively, you can get a pack of assorted bit for a tenner.
Wall plugs / Rawl plugs
£5 per 100
It’s a false economy to buy budget plugs: I’ve often had trouble making sure they grip properly and don’t spin in the holes when you tighten up a screw. And, would you feel completely confident that your curtain pole won’t fall down when it’s held up by 6 plugs which cost a total of 4p? For most light / medium-weight applications, a 6 mm plug is good (that’s 6 mm diameter), and a general-purpose length might be 30-35 mm. You want plugs which are suitable for various wall types (brick, block and plasterboard).
Adjustable spanner
£10
I don’t use mine that often (unless I’m doing a bit of plumbing) but, often enough, there’s a nut or a bolt which needs tightening or undoing.
Spirit level
£10
No, no, left a bit. Wait! that’s too far. Does it look straight to you? Is my curtain pole level? A spirit level removes the guesswork (which always turns out to be wrong, anyway). You could start off with a short spirit level – called a torpedo level – but I think a mid-length one might be more useful – perhaps 400-600 mm.
Filler knife
£4
This looks like a narrow wallpaper scraper, but the blade is much springier and more flexible – just what you need when you’re squeezing filler into those cracks and old screw holes. If you let filler dry on your knife, it’s easy enough to get rid of it by scraping it back and forth on a brick or an old piece of sandpaper.
Interior filler for walls
£4
It’s probably best to get a pot of ready-mixed filler. Just make sure the description says that it’s interior filler and it’s easy to sand. After use, remember to always put the thin plastic disc back across the surface inside the pot: it helps to stop it drying out. You could also add a couple of drips of water before you put the lid on after each use.
Sandpaper
£2 for 10 sheets
Considering what you’ll use it for (sanding filler so it’s nice and smooth before you paint over it), it might be worth going for 80 grit or 60 grit. (The grit number tells you how rough it is: a lower number is coarser.)
Sanding block
Free
Any old flat piece of wood which measures 4-6 cm x 4-6 cm x 10-15 cm. You should usually wrap your sandpaper around a block, otherwise you’ll never end up with a properly flat surface.
Junior hacksaw
£3
You need this to cut metal or plastic – think curtain poles, rollers for blinds, hoses. At a real pinch, you can cut wood with it.
Old rags
Free
Something absorbent is best. I like old dishcloths or tea towels, towels and T-shirts cut up into 20-30 cm square-ish bits. Old pants are also good, but I often wash them first.
A bag or box to put it all in
Possibly free
Any old rucksack or sports bag will do. Or, rather unconventional, but an old handbag would fit the bill.
Step ladder
£30
Standing on a chair – we’ve all done it but we know we shouldn’t. NEVER STAND ON A SPINNY-TYPE CHAIR OR ONE WITH WHEELS. You really shouldn’t be using any sort of chair to reach heights. It’s one of the leading causes of workplace accidents because a chair is not designed for that purpose: it’s not stable, and when you shift your weight, it can tip easily. A step ladder or step stool is what you need. You’re not going to be doing anything above about 8 foot (2.4 m), which is standard ceiling height, so you don’t need an enormous ladder. A step stool is plenty high enough for a tallish person to reach the ceiling. Alternatively, a small step ladder, say 2-3 foot (60-90 cm) high would fit the bill.
Some things to know
There are hundreds of places you could buy tools from. Sometimes, it’s worth spending a pound or two extra for reasonable quality and, other times, you’d just be wasting your money if you’ll only be doing just the basic jobs. I’d recommend paying a pound or two extra to get at least half-decent rawl plugs, screwdrivers and allen keys. For most of the other bits and pieces, you’ll get by just fine with cheap stuff.
If you want some ideas about where / how to buy tools, check out the post on buying tools.
Another point worth mentioning is safety. It’s a good plan to consider a few bits of safety equipment (googles, masks, and so on). You’ll find more information in the post on safety and PPE.
Takeaways
A toolkit isn’t free but it doesn’t have to be hugely expensive. £160 will get you all you need to tackle one thing after another. You’ll save far more than this after just a few jobs.
It’s not usually worth paying for top quality but, for one or two items, you might want to pay a little extra to buy something which will last for more than one or two jobs.
Always think about your safety: it’s not worth risking an injury because you wanted to save £3 on safety equipment.
