For eighty percent of the jobs in a house you need about ten tools, and that will set you back roughly £130 to £260. The rest you buy when a job asks for it. That is the whole trick: buy tools for the job, not for the shelf. Fill your garage first and start working second, and all you own is an expensive cupboard with dust on it.
The biggest beginner mistake is not owning too few tools. It is buying the wrong ones: a 200-piece set for £35 of which you use four pieces and whose bits round off after three screws, and then standing there grinding away at a concrete wall with a drill that has no hammer action.
Below is the whole story: what belongs in your first tool box, what you add once you get more serious, which drill bit suits which material, the wall plug and screw tables you need again and again, what is better hired than bought, where you should and absolutely should not save money, which safety gear is genuinely necessary and the seven things you should not buy as a beginner.
The rule that saves you hundreds
Buy for the job, not for the shelf.
Here is how that works in practice. You keep a basic kit that is always ready. A job comes up, you look at what you are missing, and you buy that (or hire it). After three years you own exactly the tools that suit the kind of work you do, and not a cupboard full of things you used once.
There is a second benefit too. When you buy at the moment you need something, you know exactly what for. Then you buy a jigsaw because you have to cut an opening in a worktop, and not because it happened to be on offer.
And then those three quality levels. With nearly every tool there are three price brackets: hobby, prosumer and professional. As a beginner the bottom two serve you well, but not for everything. Which tools you can go cheap on and which you cannot is further down this article.
Level 1: the basic kit (roughly £130 to £260)
This is what you have in the house before there is a single job on the list. With this you hang everything up, assemble furniture, repair what breaks and get through nine out of ten “just do it quickly” moments.
| Tool | What for | Roughly | What to look for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tape measure, 5 m | Everything | £8 to £20 | A wide blade (25 mm) that does not fold straight away, with a lock and a belt clip |
| Spirit level, 60 cm | Hanging, levelling | £12 to £35 | Aluminium, three vials, a magnetic strip is handy |
| Claw hammer, 500 g | Nailing, pulling out | £12 to £30 | Fibreglass or steel shaft, no loose head |
| Screwdriver set | Everything | £12 to £35 | Individual screwdrivers PH1, PH2, PZ2 and three flat sizes, plus a set of Torx |
| Combination pliers and water pump pliers | Gripping, turning | £18 to £40 | A 250 mm pair of water pump pliers covers most taps and nuts |
| Side cutters | Wire, cable ties | £8 to £20 | Hardened cutting edge |
| Utility knife with spare blades | Nearly every job | £7 to £20 | Snap-off or fixed blades, with a safe retracting mechanism |
| Cordless drill driver, 12 V or 18 V | Driving screws, light drilling | £50 to £130 | With two batteries and a torque setting |
| Drill bit and driver bit set | Screwing and drilling | £18 to £45 | A small set of decent quality beats a big cheap one |
| Wall plug and screw assortment | Hanging things | £12 to £25 | Sizes 6 and 8 mm plus 4×40 and 5×60 screws |
| Grout rake, filling knife, brush | Small repairs | £12 to £25 | One 60 mm filling knife and one 100 mm |
| Torch or head torch | Crawl space, consumer unit | £12 to £35 | Rechargeable, and a head torch really is handier than a torch |
And straight away: the safety set. Safety glasses (£4 to £18), hearing protection (£8 to £35) and a box of FFP3 masks (£18 to £35 for ten). More on that below, but buy it in one go. It is the cheapest part of your kit and the only part that protects something you cannot replace.
Where you can already save here: buy individual screwdrivers instead of a 200-piece case. Four good screwdrivers will last you a lifetime, and the case with the 196 useless bits around them only costs you cupboard space.
Level 2: the homeowner who does the work (roughly £350 to £800 extra)
As soon as you start on real jobs (drilling into a concrete wall, laying a floor, building a cupboard to size, doing something to your electrics) you need this as well.
| Tool | What for | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Hammer drill or light SDS-plus rotary hammer | Holes in concrete and masonry | £60 to £175 |
| Spirit level, 120 cm | Frames, walls, kitchens | £25 to £60 |
| Jigsaw | Curves, cut-outs, sheet material | £50 to £160 |
| Oscillating multi-tool | Plunge cuts, sanding in corners, removing sealant | £50 to £160 |
| Orbital or random orbital sander | Sanding before painting | £45 to £130 |
| Clamps (at least 4) | Anything that needs gluing or holding | £35 to £90 |
| Sealant gun (with pressure release) | Sealing, gluing | £12 to £40 |
| Try square and sliding bevel | Marking out square | £12 to £35 |
| Voltage tester and cable and pipe detector | Before you drill | £25 to £90 |
| Workbench or trestles | Everywhere | £45 to £130 |
| Earthed extension lead or cable reel | Everything | £20 to £50 |
| Vacuum that handles building dust (M class) | Everywhere, and for your lungs | £90 to £300 |
The four where you genuinely notice the difference between cheap and good:
- The rotary hammer. A hammer drill taps, a rotary hammer pounds. In concrete the difference is enormous. A 10 millimetre hole in concrete that takes a hammer drill three minutes and wrecks your wrist takes a light SDS-plus rotary hammer twenty seconds.
- The clamps. Cheap clamps flex and hold nothing. You always need more of them than you think, so buy four good ones rather than ten bad ones.
- The 120 cm spirit level. A cheap aluminium level that gets dropped once is unreliable for good. Always check a level: lay it on a flat surface, read it, turn it through 180 degrees and read it again. If the bubble sits somewhere else, it is out.
- The vacuum. An ordinary household vacuum simply blows fine dust back into the room. A building vacuum with an M class filter holds on to it, and you can connect it to your machines.
Level 3: when you really start building (roughly £500 to £1,700 extra)
If you are making furniture, building a shed, laying floors or refitting a bathroom, this is where you end up. Buy these one at a time, and only when the job calls for it.
| Tool | What for | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Plunge saw with guide rail | Cutting sheet material straight and clean | £175 to £520 |
| Mitre saw | Beams, battens and skirting to length and at an angle | £130 to £520 |
| Router | Rebates, grooves, rounding over, templates | £80 to £300 |
| Cordless impact driver | Long screws, structural work | £70 to £220 |
| Cross-line laser | Tiling, kitchens, wall panelling | £50 to £260 |
| Moisture meter | Tracing damp, checking floors | £18 to £50 |
| Angle grinder, 125 mm | Masonry, tiles, metal | £45 to £175 |
| Reciprocating saw | Demolition work | £60 to £220 |
| Pocket hole jig | Quick, strong timber joints | £35 to £175 |
Cordless tools: one platform, and the batteries are the real cost
The most important decision you make once: which battery platform you buy into. A brand’s machines share the same batteries, and those batteries cost more than you think. A single 5 Ah battery quickly runs to £50 to £100.
Three practical rules of thumb:
- Pick one platform and stick with it. Two chargers, two types of battery and two half-empty sets is the worst of all worlds.
- 18 volt is the sweet spot for the DIYer. 12 volt is light and lovely for driving screws and assembly work, but it bogs down on heavier work. 36 volt and up is for garden machinery and heavy-duty use.
- Buy machines bare (“body only”) as soon as you have two good batteries. That way you are not paying again and again for a charger and a battery you already own.
On brushless motors: they are more efficient, run cooler and last longer. On a machine you use a lot (drill driver, circular saw) it is worth the money. On a machine you pick up three times a year it is not.
Drilling: which bit belongs to which material
This is where beginners burn through the most drill bits. A wood bit in concrete is blue and blunt after one hole.
| Material | Drill bit | Machine setting |
|---|---|---|
| Softwood and sheet material | Wood twist bit with a centre point | Drilling, high speed |
| Large hole in wood (door handle, cable run) | Flat bit or hole saw | Drilling, low speed |
| Metal | HSS bit, cobalt HSS for stainless | Drilling, low speed, with cutting oil |
| Brick, sand-lime block | Masonry bit with a carbide tip | Hammer action |
| Concrete | SDS-plus hammer bit | Hammering (rotary hammer) |
| Tiles (glaze) | Tile bit or diamond bit | Drilling, no hammer action, slow, cooled with water |
| Plasterboard, gypsum blocks | Ordinary wood or masonry bit | Drilling, no hammer action |
| Glass | Diamond core bit, wet | Drilling, very slow |
The three mistakes you can avoid right now:
– Hammer action on tiles. Your tile cracks. Drill through the glaze without hammer first, and only switch the hammer on once you are into the background (and even then, preferably not in the first centimetre).
– Too high a speed in metal. The bit gets red hot and goes blunt immediately. Turn slowly, apply pressure and cool it.
– Drilling without knowing what is behind it. Use a cable and pipe detector, and allow for the safe zones where services run: vertically above and below sockets and switches, and horizontally along the ceiling and floor.
Wall plugs and screws: the tables you keep needing
Plug, drill bit and screw matched up
The basic rule: you drill with the same diameter as the plug. A 6 millimetre plug asks for a 6 millimetre bit.
| Plug diameter | Drill diameter | Screw diameter | Roughly suitable for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 mm | 5 mm | 3 to 4 mm | Picture frames, small hooks |
| 6 mm | 6 mm | 4 to 5 mm | Shelves, mirrors, curtain tracks |
| 8 mm | 8 mm | 4.5 to 6 mm | Kitchen wall units, wall racks, TV brackets |
| 10 mm | 10 mm | 6 to 8 mm | Heavy cabinets, wall brackets, wall-hung sanitaryware |
Drilling depth: the length of the plug plus about 5 to 10 millimetres extra, so dust can drop to the bottom without your plug getting stuck halfway. Stick a piece of tape on your bit as a depth marker, or use the depth stop.
Screw length: plug length plus the thickness of whatever you are hanging plus the thickness of any plaster, and then about one screw diameter on top of that.
And now the most important bit that almost nobody tells you: the plug has to match the material, not just the size.
| Background | What you use |
|---|---|
| Concrete, sand-lime block, solid brick | Ordinary nylon plug (expansion plug) |
| Hollow brick, lightweight block | Hammer-in plug or a plug that expands on several sides |
| Aerated concrete (AAC block) | A dedicated aerated concrete plug (screw-in plug) or a through fixing |
| Plasterboard (metal stud) | Cavity fixing, spring toggle or Molly bolt, and for heavy loads: screw into the metal stud |
| Gypsum blocks | Long nylon plug or gypsum block plug |
| Timber | No plug, just a wood screw (pilot drill if needed) |
Rule of thumb for heavy items on a plasterboard wall: do not hang anything heavy on the board, hang it on the structure behind it. Find the studs with a detector or by tapping gently, and screw straight into them.
Screws: sizes and pilot holes
Screws are described as diameter x length in millimetres. So a 4×40 is 4 millimetres thick and 40 millimetres long.
The four types you want in the house:
– Chipboard screws (Torx), 4×40 and 5×60: your general workhorse for timber and sheet material.
– Plasterboard screws (fine thread, bugle head): for plasterboard on metal stud.
– Structural screws or coach screws: for joists and load-bearing connections.
– Stainless screws for outdoors: A2 for ordinary outdoor work, A4 by the sea, around swimming pools and in timber with a lot of tannin such as oak and western red cedar.
Why Torx and not a cross head: a Torx head does not cam out. Your bit lasts longer, your screw stays intact, and your wrist thanks you. If you take one thing away from this article: buy Torx.
Pilot holes, when and when not:
– In softwood, well away from the edge: usually not needed with modern screws.
– In hardwood, or close to an end grain or an edge: always drill a pilot hole, otherwise the timber splits.
– Rule of thumb for the pilot bit: roughly 60 to 70 percent of the screw diameter. So for a 5 millimetre screw you pilot with about 3 to 3.5 millimetres.
– The top section can be wider. Drill the part that passes through the top board at the full screw diameter, and the screw really pulls the two parts together instead of pushing them apart.
Measuring and marking out: where every good job starts
Tools that measure out of true cost you material. Four things:
- Tape measure. Always measure from the same point and in the same way. The hook on the end of a tape is deliberately loose by a few tenths, so it measures internal and external dimensions correctly. That is not a fault.
- Spirit level. Check it as described above, and check it again after every drop.
- Try square. For marking out square. And the classic check for large panels: measure both diagonals. If they are equal, your panel is square.
- Pencil and marking gauge. A carpenter’s pencil with a flat point marks more accurately than a biro and does not smudge.
The rule of thumb that never changes: measure twice, cut once. And for batches: use a stop or a template instead of measuring each piece separately. That way you do not repeat the same half-millimetre error every time, which after ten pieces is five millimetres.
Safety: the cheapest part of your kit
This is not where you save. Together it comes to less than a hundred pounds and it is the only part you cannot replace.
Hearing protection. From 80 dB(A) noise is damaging, and from 85 dB(A) hearing protection at work is mandatory. Drills reach around 110 dB(A) and an angle grinder sits around 95 dB(A). Those limits formally apply to employers, but your ears do not distinguish between work and hobby. Hearing damage is also permanent. Source: HSE
Ear defenders or plugs makes little difference, as long as you wear them. Defenders are easier to lift off for a moment, so in practice you wear them more often.
Dust mask. As soon as you drill or grind into concrete, stone, tiles or cement-based material, silica dust is released. The UK workplace exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica is 0.1 mg/m3, and across the EU it was halved to 0.05 mg/m3 in 2025. Even drilling a few holes in a concrete wall goes above that. Use at least an FFP3 mask for short jobs, and a half mask with a P3 filter if you are at it longer. A surgical mask does absolutely nothing here.
Better still than a mask: do not create the dust in the first place. Work wet, or extract at source with a building vacuum.
Safety glasses. For anything that spins, grinds, chisels or splashes. A splinter in your eye is worth a trip to A&E, and that is the good outcome.
Gloves, with one important exception. Gloves for demolition, rough timber and masonry: fine. Gloves around rotating tools (drill, table saw, router, pillar drill): do not. A glove can get dragged in by a rotating part, and your hand is inside it.
Working safely with electricity.
– Always unwind a cable reel completely if you are running heavy tools off it. Coiled up, it can overheat.
– Work outdoors and in damp rooms on an RCD. If you are not sure your circuit is protected, use an extension lead with a built-in RCD.
– Check leads for damage before you start, and never pull a plug out by the cable.
And the simplest safety rule of all: clamp your workpiece. Most accidents happen because somebody is holding a board with one hand and sawing with the other.
Hiring instead of buying
Some machines you never earn back. Here is the trade-off, with indicative day rates from a hire shop.
| Machine | Hire per day (roughly) | Buy | Tipping point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor sander | £45 to £90 | £700 and up | Never buy, unless you do it for a living |
| Wallpaper steamer | £12 to £30 | £50 to £130 | Two rooms or more: buying can pay off |
| Concrete drill / heavy breaker | £35 to £80 | £350 and up | Hire, unless you are taking out a whole floor |
| Scaffolding (tower) | £35 to £80 | £500 and up | Hire, unless you are painting a whole house |
| Tile saw (wet) | £20 to £45 | £130 to £430 | One bathroom: hire. More: buy |
| Earth auger / rotavator | £35 to £80 | £260 and up | Hire |
| Airless paint sprayer | £35 to £70 | £260 and up | Hire |
| Trailer | £25 to £50 | a lot | Hire |
The sum to do: if hiring costs more than a third of the purchase price and you will use it more than three times, you are better off buying. Otherwise hire.
Two practical tips on hiring: collect the machine first thing in the morning and prepare your job completely the day before, so your hire day goes entirely on working. And always ask for the matching consumables (abrasive paper, discs, blades), because those are often charged separately and cost more on the spot.
Where to save and where not to
| Fine to buy cheap | Do not buy cheap |
|---|---|
| Trays, buckets, dust sheets | Drill bits and driver bits (cheap is blunt, and blunt is dangerous) |
| Brushes for undercoat and primer | Brushes and rollers for the top coat |
| Screwdrivers for occasional use | Spirit level and tape measure |
| Hand saws for rough work | Clamps |
| Work clothing | Hearing protection and dust masks |
| Storage systems | Rotary hammer and circular saw |
| Bolsters for demolition | Chisels for woodwork |
The logic behind it: save on everything that only costs you irritation, and not on anything that carries accuracy, safety or the end result. A cheap bucket does not make a bad wall. A cheap roller does.
Seven things you should not buy as a beginner
- The 200-piece tool case for £35. Sounds like a complete starter pack, is a box with four usable things and 196 that break the moment you load them.
- A cheap multi-tool as your first machine. A multi-tool is brilliant, but it is a supplementary machine, not a core one. Buy it when you need it.
- A pillar drill. Looks professional, is in the way after three months. Buy one when you genuinely do batch work in metal or timber.
- A compressor with a nail gun. Only worth it if you are fitting a lot of skirting, panelling or framing. For everything else there are cordless nailers.
- A table saw as your first sawing machine. For a DIYer a plunge saw on a rail is safer, more accurate, easier to store and better suited to sheet material.
- Two battery platforms at the same time. A waste of batteries, chargers and money.
- Extension leads without an earth. They still exist, they are cheap, and you do not want them.
Maintenance and storage: tools that keep working
- Store tools dry. An unheated damp shed will rust your drill bits and saw blades away. A sachet of silica gel or a simple moisture trap in your tool box works wonders.
- Keep cutting tools clean. Resin build-up on saw blades causes poor cuts and overheating. A quick clean with degreaser and the saw cuts like new again.
- Do not store batteries empty or full. Lithium batteries last longest stored between about 30 and 80 percent, and not in freezing cold or in a baking hot car.
- Put tools back in a fixed place. A tool wall with outlines painted on it sounds over the top, but you see at a glance what is missing, and you never hunt for anything again.
- Replace bits in good time. A rounded-off bit ruins screws and slips. Bits are a consumable, not a possession.
Which tools do you need per job?
| Job | What you need (on top of the basic kit) |
|---|---|
| Painting indoors | Sander, filling knife, masking tape, roller set, brushes, dust sheets, ladder |
| Wallpapering | Pasting table, paperhanging brush, seam roller, cutting straight edge, plumb line, wallpaper steamer (hire) |
| Hanging something on concrete | SDS-plus rotary hammer, the right plugs, cable and pipe detector, spirit level |
| Laying laminate or vinyl | Mitre saw or pull saw, jigsaw, tapping block, pull bar, spacers, knee pads |
| Tiling | Tile cutter (hire for large formats), notched trowel, spacers, grout float, spirit level, cross-line laser |
| Building a stud wall (metal stud) | Tin snips, screwdriver with depth stop, knife, plasterboard saw, taping knife, giraffe sander |
| Making a cupboard or furniture | Plunge saw with rail, clamps, router or pocket hole jig, sander, try square |
| Electrics (in your own home) | Voltage tester, wire strippers, connector blocks or lever connectors, tools with insulated handles, cable and pipe detector |
| Garden and fencing | Spade, earth auger or post hole spade, wheelbarrow, long spirit level, string line, cement mixer or mixing tub |
| Demolition work | Reciprocating saw, crowbar, sledgehammer, building vacuum, FFP3 masks, hearing protection, a skip |
What does it all come to?
| Level | What you get | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Basic kit plus safety gear | Hanging, assembling, small repairs | £175 to £300 |
| Plus level 2 | Drilling into concrete, laying floors, sawing, sanding | £520 to £1,050 in total |
| Plus level 3 | Making furniture, remodelling, building outdoors | £1,050 to £2,600 in total |
Build this up over years, not in one weekend. The nice part is that every job you do yourself usually saves more than the tools you buy for it cost. Laying a floor yourself once instead of having it laid pays for half of your level 2.
Seven mistakes beginners make
- Buying everything at once. You end up buying tools for jobs you will never do.
- Buying on price instead of on use. Ask yourself with every purchase: how often will I use this, and what happens if it disappoints?
- Putting no time into preparation. Most time is not lost on the work itself but on searching, fetching and measuring again.
- Carrying on with blunt tools. A blunt drill bit, a blunt saw blade and a rounded-off driver bit are slow, ugly and dangerous.
- Skipping safety gear because it is “only quick”. It is precisely during that “only quick” that it goes wrong, because that is when you leave your glasses off too.
- Drilling without looking at what is behind it. A £25 detector against a drilled-through water pipe: that is not a sum you need to work out.
- Not clamping the workpiece. Two clamps are quicker than one accident.
Frequently asked questions
Which tools do you really need as a beginner?
A tape measure, a 60 cm spirit level, a claw hammer, a set of screwdrivers, water pump pliers, side cutters, a utility knife, a cordless drill driver with two batteries, a set of drill and driver bits, and an assortment of wall plugs and screws. That gets you through by far the most jobs in a house, and it costs you roughly £130 to £260. Buy safety glasses, hearing protection and FFP3 masks along with it.
Is a cheap tool set a good start?
Usually not. A 200-piece set for £35 contains a handful of usable pieces and a pile of bits and sockets that spin the moment you put any force on them. Buy ten individual pieces of decent quality instead. Those last for years, while a cheap set lets you down on the first tight screw and sometimes wrecks the screw head as well.
Hammer drill or rotary hammer: which do I need?
If you mainly drill into timber, plasterboard and soft masonry, a hammer drill is enough. If you have to get into concrete, you want a light SDS-plus rotary hammer. The difference is large: a rotary hammer strikes with a real hammer mechanism instead of tapping, so a hole that takes minutes with a hammer drill is done in twenty seconds. If you drill into concrete once a year, you can hire one instead.
Which drill bit do I use for which material?
For timber a wood twist bit with a centre point, for metal an HSS bit at low speed with cutting oil, for brick and sand-lime block a masonry bit with hammer action, for concrete an SDS hammer bit, and for tiles a tile bit or diamond bit without hammer action, slowly and cooled with water. Hammer action in tiles is the fastest way to crack one.
Which wall plug goes with which drill bit?
You drill with the same diameter as the plug: a 6 mm plug means a 6 mm bit. A 6 mm plug takes a 4 to 5 mm screw, an 8 mm plug takes a 4.5 to 6 mm screw. Drill the hole 5 to 10 mm deeper than the plug is long. And choose the plug for the background: an ordinary nylon plug in concrete and solid masonry, a cavity fixing in plasterboard and a dedicated screw-in plug in aerated concrete.
When do I need to pilot drill timber?
In softwood well away from the edge, usually not. In hardwood, near end grain or close to the edge of a board, always, otherwise it splits. Pilot with roughly 60 to 70 percent of the screw diameter, so about 3 to 3.5 mm for a 5 mm screw. Drill the top section (the part going through the first board) at the full screw diameter, and the screw really pulls the parts together.
Which tools am I better off hiring than buying?
Anything that is expensive and that you rarely use: floor sander, heavy breaker, tower scaffold, wet tile saw, earth auger and airless sprayer. The sum to do: if a day’s hire costs more than a third of the purchase price and you use it more than three times, buying is cheaper. In every other case, hire, and prepare your job fully beforehand so the hire day goes entirely on working.
The short version: start with a basic kit of ten items plus safety gear, then buy for the job instead of for the shelf, pick one battery platform and stick with it, use the right bit for the right material, choose your plug for the background and not just for the size, hire what you rarely use, and never save money on hearing protection, dust masks and measuring tools.
Do that, and in three years you will own exactly the tools that suit your jobs. Without a cupboard full of gear you never look at again.
Do you know which tools you have, but not quite how to get started? At Fred’s DIY Plans you will find worked-out building plans with a material list, a cutting list and a step-by-step plan, so you know exactly what you need before you cut the first board. Have a look here.
Regards from Fred Schouten, handyman and DIYer through and through
PS: buy Torx screws instead of cross head. One job to get used to it, and after that never again a bit that slips or a screw head you round off. Small tip. Big difference.