Tool Kit For The Home

Main­te­nance tool kit for the home.

From all of the years that I have spent work­ing in hotel main­te­nance and repair­ing prob­lems in homes, I have found that there are a few tools that come in handy for just about every job. They are your most basic tools yet they are indis­pen­si­ble when you are try­ing to tear apart just about any­thing around the house.

When you com­bine these tools into a kit, it really isn’t that large and it’s not that expen­sive (unless of course you pur­chase all of your tools from Snap-On® or some­place like that). Usu­ally you can fit every­thing into a medium sized tool bag and it’s eas­ily car­ried or stored.

I have a ton of spe­cialty tools that are only used for cer­tain jobs and they do get a lot of use, but for every ser­vice call I per­form I always have a mul­ti­pur­pose bag that goes to every job with me and has all of the com­mon tools and items that I use on a reg­u­lar basis.

This bag includes these tools and items:

• Screw­driver set, At least three sizes of Phillips and straight blade.

#1, #2, #3 in Phillips, #2 is the most com­monly used.

3/16”, 1/4”, 3/8” Most com­mon straight blades that I use.

In Addi­tion to these I also have a set of Micro screw­drivers and a cou­ple of stubby screw­drivers for get­ting into tight areas.

• Pli­ers Set, Includ­ing tongue and Groove Pli­ers, Slip joint pli­ers, Nee­dle nose pli­ers, and Side cutters.
• Adjustable Wrenches, A set of three: 6in. 8in. and 10in.
• Nut Dri­ver Set, These are usu­ally sold in a set of sizes from 1/8in to 1/2in. But the sizes that I use by far the most are 1/4in. and 5/16in.
• Com­bi­na­tion Wrenches, A set of sizes from 1/4in. to 3/4in. is usu­ally all you need for most projects.
• Lock­ing Pli­ers, I like to keep a set of small lock­ing pli­ers and a set of large lock­ing pli­ers on hand.
• Util­ity Knife, A good util­ity knife stocked with extra blades.
• Socket set, A set of 1/4in. drive sock­ets and ratchet helps out a lot.
• Flash­light, A small one that is easy to carry.
• Tor­pedo level, easy to carry and it comes in handy for many things.
• Hex Keys, for adjust­ing set screws as well as other applications.
• Tape Mea­sure, Encase you need to mea­sure something.
• Putty Knife, Great for scrap­ing or clean­ing off surfaces.
• Elec­tri­cal Tape, Tap­ing up wires and hold­ing things out of your way.
• Teflon Thread Tape, For any pipe fit­ting threads.
• Wire Ties, I use these for all kinds of things. They are great to have on hand.
• Wood Chisel/ Rasp, I use this quite a bit when I’m work­ing on adjust­ing doors and latches.
• Parts Assort­ments, I like to keep small parts assort­ments handy, Wire ter­mi­nals, screws and hol­low wall inserts are good ones to keep on hand. A small assort­ment bin works great or you can use bags like I am show­ing in the picture.
• Hack­saw, I keep a small hack­saw in the tool bag. The one I am show­ing in the pic­ture works great for tight areas and it doesn’t take up much room.

You would be amazed at how much you can accom­plish with this basic set of tools. And if you wish, you can add tools to it to make it fit your spe­cific needs. With the tool bag that I’m show­ing here I have a lot of room to add tools to it and I often do throw some­thing inside it for cer­tain jobs if I think I will need them.

You never know when you may need a screw­driver or a pair of pli­ers around the house. You will thank your­self later for hav­ing a kit like this around when that time comes.