Deciding whether to DIY (do it yourself) or hire a professional or contractor for a home repair, maintenance, improvement or decorating task is not always easy. However, one thing is very clear: you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars with DIY home maintenance, repairs, and improvements.

One surefire way to saving money on DIY home repairs and maintenance is to stock up your tool collection and have them at the ready. But the truth is: you don’t need to have so many tools to prepare yourself for home emergencies, so you don’t have to buy every tool you find at the hardware store just because you feel that they might be useful. Instead, spending your tool budget on a few good and necessary tools that you will use over and over again makes more sense.

So, whether you are an expert or a novice, the following tools are important for tackling various DIY tasks and getting jobs done at home.

14-piece Quad Saw/Driver Set
You’ll need a screwdriver for almost all home repairs, and installations since most gadgets in your home are fastened with screws. Even furniture, doorknobs, outlet covers, cabinet doors, doors, and cabinets knobs, etc. are held together by screws. So, investing in a good set of screwdrivers of different sizes is not a bad idea since you’ll need them to remove the screws to fix or effect the repairs and drive the screws back in.

Also, you’ll require jab and keyhole saws to pierce through or cut out small shapes in different materials such as drywall or pipes during a plumbing task. These cutting tools can also work on wood, carpet, plastic, rubber, and other thin but rigid materials. The 14-piece Quad Saw/Driver Set joins speed and power drivers with jab and keyhole saws.

The toolset includes a bit extender and seven screwdriver bits that you can use in place of the regular screwdrivers as well as three saw blades that you can use for wood, metal, PVC, and drywall cutting tasks. Even if you have a reciprocating saw and a battery-operated driver/drill, adding a handy manual tool with interchangeable heads to remove and fasten screws, and saw blades to handle your cutting tasks to your toolkit is not a bad idea.

Distance Measuring Tool
A distance measuring tool is one of the most important tools every avid DIYer should have in their tool collection. This tool is required for taking accurate measurements when handling a building, or home repair and improvement tasks. They are required for transferring measurements for cutting tasks or calculating and estimating the required materials for home improvement projects such as flooring, painting, tiling, sheetrock installations and many more.

However, there are two major types of distance measuring devices used in the DIY world today, the laser measure and pocket tape measure. The pocket tape measures are very portable and are often lockable and retractable which made them a staple measuring tool for woodworkers and avid DIYers. On the other hand, the laser measures are portable devices that use laser beams (pulse of light) to take measurements and are often used for longer and faster accurate distance measurements.

2 in 1 laser tape measure

Both distance measuring devices are useful but one may not be a perfect substitute for the other for certain tasks so, you might need to add both to your tool collection for greater work efficiency. A surefire way to improve your work efficiency is by adding a 2-in-1 laser tape measure with a digital LCD screen to your toolkit. This tool combines the laser measure with the regular pocket tape measure which made it a great and superfast precision tool for short and long measurements and other tasks such as re-arranging furniture, hanging picture frames and installing appliances.

Shape Duplicator
Most of the construction materials (such as drywall, tiles, wallpapers, etc.) that we use for home repair and improvement projects come with shapes, dimensions, and straight angles that facilitate their installation, transfer, and storage. However, their straight angles and shapes don’t always fit with our design’s irregularities. They don’t coincide precisely especially when encountering specific home elements or organic materials such as pipes, furniture, pillars, and ducts, so you may have to manipulate your way when cutting or installing the construction materials around these areas.

With a shape duplicator such as the 833 Contour Gauge, Profile Gauge, Shape Duplicator, you can copy, measure, and duplicate complex shapes and contours to cut or adapt the materials perfectly to other elements. The tool comes with a row of long, thin, mobile teeth that can be pressed against the element to take its surface impression or obtain a mold of its shape and generate templates. This template can be used to adjust and cut your building material with precision.

Shape duplicators eradicate guessing the dimensions of both regular and irregular shapes. That makes them ideal for shaping tiles around pipes or other irregular shapes, precisely cutting vinyl and wood flooring to fit around pillars or other objects, and repairing or replicating unique details in refurbishments or restorations 

Sliding T-Bevels
These tools are used for both outlining and transferring angles and are essential for many kinds of home improvement and construction projects, especially those that require less than 90⁰ angle measurements. Imagine you’re adding skirting to the roofing of your patio or constructing a shelf that will fit in the corner of your room, you’ll need a tool to take and transfer accurate angle measurements. That’s where a tool like the 828 Digital Sliding T-Bevel comes in.

The tool will help take and transfer accurate angle measurements to create outlines for precise cuts. The tool is not only useful for wood works but also for DIY tasks such as flooring, tiling, drywalling, and installing home appliances.

Oscillating multitool
An oscillating multipurpose tool is one of those avid DIYer power tools that you may not think you need until you begin to use it. Then you’ll wonder how you coped without one. This mighty little tool is one of the most versatile tools around as it can grind, slice, and cut a wide range of materials, scrape up tiles, and sand in tight corners among other applications. All you need is to install the right accessory or blade, and you are good to go.

The tool can cut detail areas on materials like wood, plastic, drywall, and can be used to cut both plastic and metal pipes during a plumbing task, and nails during a woodworking project. You can also use it to flush cut, remove grout, undercut door jamb, repair windows, remove caulk, and prepare surfaces for painting.

Conclusion
There are many other tools that you can have in your home to prepare yourself for emergencies. However, the tools mentioned above will be a great addition to your tool collection and will not only prepare you for home emergencies but also make you battle ready to take on regular maintenance and repairs within your home.

ABOUT GENERAL TOOLS
Ingenuity is at our core of every tool we make. With General in your tool belt, you can proudly take on the title of “Genius At Work”. Check out generaltools.com for all your precise tool needs.