Three tools fix nine things out of ten
People ask me what to buy and expect a list of twenty. It’s three, plus a torch, and the money is better spent on one decent version of each than on a set of forty in a plastic case.
Somebody at work is moving into their first place and asked me what to buy, and I gave them a list of three things, and they looked at me like I was holding out on them.
I’m not. It’s three.
The screwdriver
A ratchet screwdriver with a decent set of bits. This is eight jobs in ten on its own and I would spend the most money here.
Ratchet matters because most of the time you are working in a space that will not let you turn your wrist all the way round — inside a cupboard, behind a cistern, under a bed. Without the ratchet you take the tip out of the screw twenty times and each time you go back in you chew the head a bit more.
Bits matter more than the handle. Cheap bits are soft, and a soft bit rounds out the first stiff screw it meets, and then you don’t have a screw problem any more, you have a much worse problem that takes an hour. Get a set with hardened bits from a name you have heard of — mine are Wera, bought about nine years ago, no arrangement with anybody, still fine.
The pliers
Combination pliers, the ones with the flat jaws, the curved bit behind them and a wire cutter in the middle.
Not long-nose. Long-nose are for getting into places and everybody buys them first because they look precise, and then bends them on something they were never meant to hold. Combination pliers grip a rounded-off nut, pull a nail, hold something while you turn something else, and cut a cable tie, which between them is most of what pliers are actually for in a house.
The adjustable spanner
200mm. Not the little one, which won’t fit a tap connector, and not the big one, which won’t fit in the space under a sink.
Adjustable spanners have a reputation for chewing things and the reputation is earned by cheap ones with loose jaws. A good one is fine, and for a house — where you meet maybe six different sized nuts a year, all of them on plumbing — it beats a set of spanners you have to go and find the right one from.
And a head torch
Not a tool. The most useful thing on this list.
Nearly every job in a house happens in a dark place: under a sink, behind a machine, in a cupboard, in a loft. A torch you hold takes one hand away and you only have two. A head torch means you can use both hands and see what you are doing at the same time, and I would say it is the single biggest difference between a job getting done and a job getting looked at.
What I got wrong
I bought a drill first. Cordless, on offer, felt like a proper purchase.
Meanwhile the things that actually broke were a washing machine that would not drain and a chair that wobbled, neither of which needed a hole in anything.
A drill makes holes. Almost nothing that goes wrong in a house needs a hole — things come loose, things leak, things need taking apart and putting back. I used it twice a year for four years while doing everything else with a rubbish screwdriver that came free with a bed.
And the tools lived in the shed. Twenty yards, down the garden, in the dark, in February. That is not storage, it is a decision not to fix anything, taken in advance. There’s a small box in the kitchen cupboard now with those three things and the torch in it, and it is used probably weekly. The stone for sharpening lives with them, and so does the radiator key, which is the cheapest thing in the house.
The proper chest is still in the shed. It’s for work. It stays there.
Things people email to ask
- What tools do you actually need in a house?
- A ratchet screwdriver with a good set of bits, a pair of combination pliers with a wire cutter, and a 200mm adjustable spanner. Those three cover most of what goes wrong in a normal house — furniture, appliances, taps, flat-pack, plug sockets and toys — and a head torch, which is not a tool but is the thing that most often decides whether a job actually gets started.
- Are cheap tool sets worth it?
- No, and the reason is not snobbery. A forty-piece set in a moulded case is usually four usable items surrounded by things sized to fill the moulding, and the screwdriver bits are soft enough to chew the head off the first stiff screw you meet. One decent version of each of the three tools costs about the same and will outlast you.
- Should I buy a drill first?
- Probably not. A drill makes holes, and most household problems are things coming loose rather than things needing a hole. I bought mine first, use it perhaps twice a year, and it sat in a cupboard while I was tightening and undoing things with a bad screwdriver. Buy the drill when you have a specific job that needs one.
- Where should you keep your tools?
- In the house, where you live. Mine used to be in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and in February that arrangement is a decision not to fix anything — you look at the loose handle, you look at the rain, and you leave it. A small box in a kitchen cupboard gets used; a beautiful chest twenty yards away does not.
Tom
Carpenter. Writes when something in the house breaks and he has an opinion about why. Types with two fingers, which is why there are fewer of his.
If this was any use
The chair I fixed four times
Three of those fixes were wrong and one of them was wrong in a way that took a year to show up. What I should have done on the first evening, written down so I stop doing it.
The washing machine wasn’t broken
It wouldn’t drain, it was eleven years old, and we’d already looked at new ones. Then I took the filter out. There was a 2p, a hair clip and something I have chosen not to identify.
The radiator that was cold at the top
Cold at the top, hot at the bottom. Anna had put a jumper on and mentioned it twice and I had said I’d look at it, twice, over about five weeks. It took four minutes and a fifty-pence key.
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