I wrote a post in the early days about the manly subject of tools and equipment. How has it stood the test of time?
Buy v. Hire? In practice this has been very straightforward – if we think it will cost more overall to hire than buy, then we have bought. I do not regret buying the scaffolding, for example. One thing we did not anticipate was a) how difficult it would be to get George around at short notice with his big digger and b) how much we have used the hire mini digger and hire mini dumper instead. At one point last year we seriously pondered buying a second-hand mini digger for the duration. We did not do so because I did not want to be responsible if it broke down, plus it was a bit late in the day, our needs should fall away over the next year.
Quality? Price is not always related to quality, but often is.
As regards electrical tools: I bought a Lidl cordless drill and spare battery for under £45 and it is excellent for light use, as good as the Hitachi I bought for nearly £100. I do not foresee needing one with larger batteries or all-metal gearbox/induction motor in the next year or so. Another win was my Titan big breaker, which cost £160 but has lasted very well and blasts its way through anything that gets in its way. The £60 I spent on as SDS light breaker, by contrast, was not money well spent. It came with a warning not to use it for long periods and does not have a lock to stop the chisel-tip rotating. So I use it when I am desperate and prefer to use Ric’s 15-year-old Makita medium breaker, which is the real deal. The mid-range tools – Makita angle grinder and Bosch SDS drill – are performing very well and should last the life of the project.
For handtools, I have learnt to look around. Our local hardware store, JRD in Ellon, sell tools from a wide range of manufacturers. The Hilka range, for example, is at the lower price point, yet some of their offerings look suspiciously like their Draper or Faithfull equivalents. Unless I know I am getting better quality for a reason, I am buying the cheaper version.
For disposable items such as cutting disks I have usually spent a bit more for a longer-lasting product. I spent nearly £30 on a diamond blade for the angle grinder, when I could have spent half that, but it has been heavily used and has a lot of life left. On the other hand, I bought some ‘premium’ metal cutting disks from Screwfix and wore through a couple just cutting rebar mesh. I bought a couple of cheaper blades at JRD and have not yet worn through the first.
The right tool at the right time? Not living permanently on site means that I occasionally find that a tool I need is in the other place. Frustrating and each time this happens at the steading, I go into Ellon and buy a second one. It wastes hours and costs money, however, as we build up out toolbox it is becoming less of an issue. I recommend not buying tools ahead of time, on the assumption that they may come in handy, sometime. It has been revealing how Ric & Geoff have quite different must-use lists of common tools and materials – from us and from each other.
Verdicts on my ‘must-have’ tools/equipment: We did pretty well! Most of what we thought we would need, we bought and have used. The big omission so far is the framing nail gun we bought this summer which should save us a lot of time and effort when we construct out timberwork – there is a lot of it to do! I am also now looking at a drywall screw gun, which makes it much easier for one person to fix boards to ceilings. Ric constructed a couple of very useful bits of equipment, that I never knew we would need, from odds & ends – a soil screener (from scrap I-beams) and a concrete chute (from corrugated steel).
| Item | Expectation | Reality |
| General handtools | Already got. Hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, cold chisels etc. Keep. | Just about right, but we are buying essentials for the steading so we a) do not hold Ric back when he is on site without us and b) worry less about lugging them between home and steading. |
| Spade(s), shovel(s), pickaxe, sledgehammer, builders barrows, broom(s), handbrush(es) | Buy & Keep | Spot on. We buy more when we need them – we are a three-barrow family now because we needed them for the concrete slab. Also, this stuff wears out. |
| Surveyors tape, builders pins and line | Already got. For marking out the boundary to the steading site. Keep | I use them regularly for measuring up and for building work. They have been essential. |
| Level, tripod & staff | Buy on Ebay. For internal floors, drainage & other ground works. Sell after use. | Spot on again. We use it a lot, a very good buy but I cannot see us needing it once we are finished. |
| Laser measurer | Buy, cheap-ish. Keep. | I have one, it is really for indoor use. It will be invaluable when we start working on internal structures. |
| Post hole bar & digger, post driver, fencing pliers, gripple tensioner | Buy. For fencing. Keep. | The post hole bar is my most-used tool ever! I used it to make holes for our bare-root hedging, I use it to break open rough ground, to lever thing apart and to whack things.
The post hole digger was completely unsuitable for our ground – too stony and tough for it. It is practically unused. The post driver, fencing pliers and gripple stuff were essential and I use them when I need them. I will hang on to much of it, for future fence work. |
| Cordless SDS+ drill, heavy duty | Hire. To get electricity meter box(es) in place. | I have not needed it since. |
| Fish tape | Buy & keep | I had to check what this was. I did not buy one and have not missed it. |
| Corded SDS+ drill 2-3kg | Buy. For all sorts of things. Decent quality to drill into granite. Keep. | I got a very nice Bosch drill for one Christmas, a joy to use. |
| Hilti SDS+ bits | Buy. To drill into granite | I bought a small pack of Hilti 8mm bits, which were expensive and are indeed amazingly effective – they have four cutting edges, not two and make mincemeat of granite. They will be heavily used when we work on tying our structural timberwork into the steading wall. I have bought lesser bits for lighter use, but still of decent quality. |
| Breaker | Buy. To break concrete (probably the £150 Titan from Screwfix). Sell after use if fit to. | Spot on again. This is amazingly effective. The one downside is that I do not think the tips are replaceable. There is loads of life still in ours. |
| Impact Moler & compressor | Hire. For water piping under the public road | I would have done, if I had been allowed to do the work! |
| MDPE pipe cutter | Buy & keep | I bought one recently, but am not sure how essential it will be. |
| Big digger & (normal sized) driver | Hire. For demolition, trenching, foundations. | We use George and his big digger for the heavy work. The rest of the time we hire a Kubota 1.6 tonne mini digger that Ric uses. |
| Mini dumper | Hire. For moving concrete, spoil, aggregate. | We have hired a 1-tonne Thwaites dumper and used it heavily. Even I can drive it, although I did throw myself off at one point. |
| Micro digger | Hire. For excavating inside steading ground floor. | We used the Kubota mini digger. |
| Roof ladder | Buy. For demolishing existing roof and re-roofing. Keep. | We bought two in the end. I needed to be able to work between ladders without having to climb down and move the one ladder all the time. |
| Angle grinder, 9″ + discs | Buy & keep. | Essential, we use it on stone, metal and concrete. |
| Circular saw + blades | Already got. | I have not had the need for it yet, but will do once we have the roof on. |
| Hand circular saw, corded | Buy & keep. | No need yet. |
| Hand planer, corded | Already got. | No need yet. |
| Jigsaw, corded | Already got. | No need yet. |
| Hammer drill, cordless, 18v | Buy. Most people advise Makita/De Walt. I might try Ryobi One+ range. Keep. | I bought a little Hitachi drill. I may need to buy bigger batteries for it. |
| Drill/Driver, cordless, 18v | Buy. As above. Keep. | The Hitachi does this. |
| Hand sander, cordless, 18v | Buy. As above. Keep. | Not sure I will need this. |
| Wrecking bars | Already got. | My big gorilla bar is amazing and valuable. The little ones, I have never used. |
| Pry bars | Buy & keep. | I bought a decent sized one, it is a good tool but the handle is falling apart. |
| Scaffolding | Buy second hand on Ebay. Looking to get e.g. 8m wide by 5m high run. Sell when finished | Did that, essential. |
| Slate ripper | Buy & keep. | Not a good buy. Our slates were held on with galvanised clout nails, the slate ripper was useless on them. |
| Sack trolley | Buy & keep. | I use it for moving lumps of granite around, v useful. One wheel is wonky now, I may replace it. |
| Cement mixer | Buy. Sell/dispose when finished. | Our trusty Belle Minimix was a very good buy and is used heavily. |
| Pin hammer | Buy. To clean up granite. Sell once finished. | At present I am thinking more of using a light breaker with a chisel tip! |
| Compressor, electric | Buy. For air tools including pin hammer. Sell once finished. | Unlikely at present. |
| Hand tools for lime mortar | Buy. For pick & point. Keep. | I have some basic tools and will be trying them out in 2018. |
I have not bothered with my ‘Might-need’ tools/equipment – a platform and a corded router. What we will do, though, is get a set of heavy duty lockable castor wheels to fix to the feet of our kwikstage scaffolding. We can set up a bay of scaffold and wheel it round over our floor slab and save a lot of time putting it up/taking it apart.
My Top 10 so far!
- Faithful fence bar – my most essential tool ever!
- Kubota 1.6 tonne digger
- Thwaites 1 tonne dumper
- Ric’s medium breaker
- Belle Minimix cement mixer
- Ric’s soil screener – hand constructed from waste steel I-beam
- Wacker plate – we hired for compacting hardcore
- Level, tripod and staff
- Angle grinder
- Gorilla breaker bar
East Byreleask Steading 