Hand Tools

The tools your builder assumes you own, and the ones you'll reach for more than you expect.

As a homeowner project manager, you're not laying bricks or skimming plaster. But you need to check your builder's work, mark out layouts, and make decisions on site that depend on accurate measurements. You also need a few basic striking tools for demolition days and site prep.

Each guide explains what the tool does, how to use it properly, what to buy at each budget tier, and the accuracy checks that prevent expensive mistakes.

Where to start

If you buy nothing else, get a tape measure, a spirit level and a 2m straight edge. The tape and level let you check dimensions and levels against the drawings as the walls go up. The straight edge is how you check a finished wall or floor for flatness, which a level alone cannot tell you, and the guide sets out the tolerances to hold your builder to. Read the builder's line guide too, because it explains how a bricklayer keeps a wall straight and what a bowed course looks like.

The guides, grouped by job

Measuring and levelling. The tape measure, spirit level, digital spirit level for drainage falls, magnetic spirit level, torpedo level for tight first fix spots, 2m straight edge, plumb bob and builder's square.

Keeping brickwork straight. The builder's line and the three ways of holding it: line pins, corner blocks and tingle plates for long runs. A chalk line snaps straight lines onto floors and walls.

Bricklaying and pointing. The brick trowel, pointing trowel and brick jointer, which decides the finished profile of every mortar joint.

Striking, cutting and demolition. The claw hammer, club hammer, bolster chisel for cutting bricks and blocks, cold chisel and wrecking bar for lifting skirting and stripping out.

Plastering and finishing. The plastering hawk, plastering float, sealant gun and the clamps a kitchen fitter uses to pull worktop joints tight.

Where these fit in the build

Squares, lines and tapes earn their keep at setting out and through walls and blockwork. Hawks and floats belong to plastering, clamps and levels to kitchen installation, and the straight edge and level come out again for the snagging checklist.