An Essential Home Tool Kit

A few days back, the side mirror on our bike came loose. Not broken, just loose. You would set it right, ride for two minutes, and it would slowly rotate until you were looking at your own knee instead of the road behind you.

The fix for that is one nut. You tighten it and you are done.

But the thing is we didn't have a spanner.

So the plan became what it always becomes. Take it to the mechanic, wait, pay for thirty seconds of work. The money is small. What bothered me is that it is the same every time.

A loose chair leg, a switchboard cover hanging off, a cupboard hinge that won't close, a gadget with a battery lid screwed shut. A laptop that runs hot and loud because the exhaust fan is choked with dust, and the only way to clean it is to open the back panel. A keyboard with crumbs under the keys, a mouse that has stopped clicking properly.

Each one is tiny, and each one either waits for weeks or goes to somebody else because there is nothing at home to open it with.

I once paid 200 INR just to get my laptop's exhaust fan cleaned. The person opened the back, cleaned the fan and closed it again. That was the whole job.

So I think it is time to put a little money into an essential household toolbox.

Not the big one#

When you search for a tool kit online, the first results are the 150 or 200 piece sets. A drill, a hundred bits, sockets in every size, spanners in both metric and inches, things you won't be able to name.

That is not what I mean. Most of it will sit in the box untouched, and a box that heavy ends up on top of the cupboard where nobody reaches for it.

What I want is the small kit that handles most of the small jobs around a house. Light enough to keep in a drawer, simple enough that anyone at home can open it and find the right thing.

What goes in it#

When I looked online (at the time of writing this), I couldn't find a kit with just these tools. So I bought them separately and put them together in one box.

A screwdriver with changeable bits. One handle and a set of bits beats five separate screwdrivers. Make sure it has the different shapes: plus (Phillips), minus (flat) and star (Torx), each in a few sizes. That covers almost every screw in the house, and the small ones also open remotes, toys, and the back of a laptop, keyboard or mouse.

Two sets of spanners. One set of open end spanners and one set of ring spanners, both from 8 to 20 mm. Each spanner has the same type on both ends, just a different size on each. Having both sets is the most useful. The open end slides onto a nut from the side when there is no room to go over the top, and the ring end goes all the way around the nut, so it grips better and doesn't slip. This is the one I was missing.

A line tester. The small screwdriver with a bulb in the handle. It tells you if a wire or socket is live before you touch it. It costs almost nothing and it is the one tool here I'd call a safety item. Everyone should have one.

A cutting plier. For gripping, twisting and cutting wire.

A hammer. A basic one with a metal head and a metal handle is the best to have. Get one with a long handle, not a short one. A longer handle is more comfortable to hold, and each hit does more work, so you need fewer of them. For nails, picture frames and gentle persuasion.

A few other consumables. Insulation tape, a roll of zip ties and a small box of assorted screws. Add a brush too. An old toothbrush or a dry cloth is enough to clean out a laptop fan, a keyboard or a mouse once you have the back open.

That's it. A screwdriver set, a tester, spanners, a plier, a hammer and a few small things. It all fits in one small box, and that is our essential household tool kit.

Where it stops#

Having the tools doesn't make me a mechanic, and I don't want this post to sound like it does. If you are an engineer, or you have worked on bikes and machines for years, you already know what you can open up and what you shouldn't.

For the rest of us, the kit is for the small stuff. Tightening, replacing, reattaching. The kind of thing where if you get it wrong, nothing bad happens and you just try again.

Brakes, gas lines, the main electrical board, anything inside the engine, anything where a mistake hurts someone. That still goes to the person who does it every day. A toolbox saves you the trip for a loose nut. It shouldn't make you brave about the things that actually need training.

The mirror#

Once the tools came home, the mirror took a minute. Set it to the right angle, hold it there, tighten the nut at the base. It hasn't moved since.

Small job, small tool. That is the whole idea.