Hand tools will be some of the more important things you need to have if you’re planning on dropping everything and living off the grid. You have to understand that you will be responsible for everything that needs to be done in your new home. Gone are the days when you can simply call a professional to fix a leak or do other repairs on your home. When you go off-grid, you should be absolutely self-sufficient and you need the right tools to help you get to that point. Fortunately, there are different hand tools that require less carbon footprint yet gets the job done.
Basic Hand Tools for Living Off the Grid
Let’s start with the basic. Every home should have hand tools for minor and even major repairs. These tools do not require electricity so they’re great investments for people living off the grid.
Hammer
The hammer is perhaps one of the most popular and common hand tools. The all-purpose claw hammer handles most of the basic jobs in your home. A ball pein is mainly for flattening or curving metal while a rubber mallet is for more delicate jobs. If you have to demolish, say, an old unsteady wall, a sledge hammer will do the trick.
Having a claw hammer will be a good start to your basic hand tools kit. As you go on and depending on your need, you can invest on the other kinds of hammers as well as specialty hammers such as a joiner’s mallet, brick hammer, veneer hammer, and upholsterer’s hammer.
Measuring Tool
It will be difficult for you to build anything properly without having the proper measurements. You need a tape measure and a combination square to do the job.
Level
Aside from getting the right height, length, width and angle of whatever you’re building or fixing, you also need to make sure it’s evenly level. Invest on small and large levels.
Hand Drill
The electric grid will likely go down when SHTF. This will hand tools even more important power tools will be rendered useless. When you’re living off the grid, you also prefer not to use that much electricity so power drills will take the backseat to hand drills. You’ll also want to get different drill bits for different jobs.
Screwdrivers
Screwdrivers should be in every household, whether you’re living off the grid or not. There are numerous kinds of screwdrivers, such as the slot head, Pozidriv, and the Phillips head. Make sure you get a complete set with different heads so you won’t have any issues later on.
Wrenches and Sockets
You’ll still need transportation, such as a pickup truck, when you’re living off the grid. If you’re farming a large enough tract of land, you’d also want to use a tractor. You will need wrenches and sockets to keep them in tiptop shape. Some home repair will also necessitate the use of these hand tools.
Axe
Nothing says “off the grid” more than an axe. This basic homesteading tool is used in cutting down trees and chopping firewood necessary for cooking and surviving cold weather. It’s also useful as a weapon if the need arises or for breaking a door down in an emergency such as a fire.
Machete
A machete is another bladed tool that’ll prove useful in clearing areas and defending yourself from threats, human or otherwise.
Shovel and Spade
When you’re living off the grid, you do a lot of digging and scooping. You’d probably be surprised that a spade is different from a shovel and that there are many kinds of each. A spade has a shorter shaft and the blade is straight and flat. It’s used more for heavy duty digging thanks to its sturdy blade. A shovel, meanwhile, has a concave blade and curved tip, except for the flat shovel. Shovels have specific types for digging or scooping.
For digging, you’ll need a square, round or pointed digger. A square digger cuts through roots so it’s a great tool when you’re transplanting. A round digger is used for soft soil while a pointed digger works best on hard or rocky soil.
Flat shovels are obviously the ones with the flat head. It’s used more for scooping since it’s harder to drive through soil as compared to diggers. If you want to do some landscaping, you’ll probably want a trench shovel for cleaning out and shaping those trenches. Otherwise, you can make do with handheld shovels for your gardening needs.
If you’re building a fence, you need to dig holes for your poles. That job will be a lot easier with a post hole shovel. Scoop shovels, as the name implies, are for scooping and moving stuff such as sand and gravel.
Saw
You’re lucky if you own a piece of land full of trees you can turn into lumber. You don’t have to go to your local hardware to purchase wood for your projects. Of course, you need a saw to cut down trees and shape them into the required sizes and forms.
A chain saw will help in cutting down or trimming trees, clearing bush, and making firewood. It’ll especially be useful in clearing debris after a strong storm. The hand saw, meanwhile, is more apt for basic cutting jobs. For more specific woodworking jobs, you’ll need specialized saws such as a table saw, circular saw, jigsaw, coping saw, rotary saw, and scroll saw. You also need a hacksaw for cutting metal and plastic pipes and tubings.
There are a number of hand tools that will prove useful when you start living off the grid. We’ve only listed down ten of these tools that we feel are the most important. If you think another hand tool deserves to be in the list, tell us which in the comment section.
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