lightweight tool sets for working from home

Apollo Tools DT9706 39-Piece General Household Tool Set

The compact-case pick that turns up in most home-tool roundups; Bob Vila made it the best-value choice on the strength of a case slim enough to sit in a kitchen drawer. Inside is the short list for desk-and-apartment jobs: an 8oz claw hammer, lineman's pliers, a tape measure, a utility knife, a bit driver with twenty bits, precision screwdrivers for eyeglass screws, hex keys and scissors. Apollo puts a lifetime guarantee on the hand tools. The contents list stops at hand tools, so a bolt-heavy job means buying a socket set separately.

Amazon Basics 65-Piece Home Repair Tool Kit with Carrying Bag

The bag version of Amazon's house-brand kit, and the one here with a real ratchet: a 1/4-inch drive handle with eight SAE sockets, alongside a 13oz fiberglass hammer, a 16-foot tape measure, a torpedo level, slip-joint and needle-nose pliers, and a 30-piece bit set. Soft storage squashes into a closet in a way a molded case will not, at the cost of fitted slots, so tools shift around inside it.

Amazon Basics 142-Piece Household Tool Kit

The headline count is inflated by a 100-piece hardware kit of screws and anchors, so read it as a roughly forty-tool set that happens to arrive with the wall fixings already in the box: 8oz hammer, 10-foot tape measure, slip-joint pliers, torpedo level, precision screwdrivers, scissors and a utility knife. The blow-molded case is under three inches deep, which is what makes it a shelf-or-drawer kit rather than something that lives on the floor of a closet. Amazon gives the weight in metric, 2.12 kg, which is about 4.7 pounds.

CARTMAN 39-Piece Household Tool Set

The most-reviewed kit in this comparison by a wide margin, with tens of thousands of ratings behind a very ordinary set of basics: claw hammer, slip-joint pliers, tape measure, snap-off utility knife, scissors, precision screwdrivers, a bit driver with bits, and SAE hex keys. It is the same shape of kit as the Apollo, cheaper and with a far longer track record. There is no ratchet or socket set in it. Cartman gives the weight in metric, 1.5 kg, which is about 3.3 pounds.

CARTMAN 57-Piece Home Tool Kit

Cartman's larger kit adds most of what the 39-piece leaves out: an adjustable wrench, sockets, a torpedo level, and long-nose and diagonal pliers on top of the hammer, tape measure and screwdriver bits. The catch is that this is a new listing with only a handful of ratings, so there is none of the track record that makes the smaller Cartman an easy recommendation.

WORKPRO 100-Piece Kitchen Drawer Home Tool Kit

Sold as a kitchen-drawer kit, and the design follows through: a 600D polyester bag with a wide double-pull zipper and a dedicated strap for every tool, rather than a case you have to open flat on a surface. Subtract the forty cable ties and the contents still cover more ground than most kits this size, with an 8-inch adjustable wrench, nine sockets, combination and long-nose pliers, a 9-inch torpedo level and a hex key set. The soft bag is the reason it fits where a molded case will not.

DOWELL 24-Piece Homeowner Tool Set

The smallest count here, which is rather the point: two dozen full-size tools instead of a hundred bits, in a blow-molded case DOWELL describes as small enough to stash anywhere. Handles are TPR-covered and the company states its tools meet or exceed ANSI standards. Worth weighing against the Apollo and Hi-Spec kits at similar money, which hand you far more pieces without necessarily handing you more tools.

DOWELL 62-Piece Homeowner Tool Kit

The heaviest kit in this comparison and the one that stops behaving like a drawer kit: screwdrivers, hammer, adjustable wrench, hex keys, tape measure, pliers, a socket set and bits in a 14-inch blow-molded case. That buys range for furniture assembly and light plumbing at roughly double the weight of the compact sets, so it is a closet-shelf purchase rather than something that lives beside the desk. DOWELL states the tools meet or exceed ANSI standards.

Hi-Spec 38-Piece Compact Tool Kit

Pitched at dorm rooms and first apartments, and the case is the argument: at 2.2 inches deep it is one of the slimmest here, closer to a hardback book than a toolbox. The contents are the everyday set, claw hammer through pliers, screwdriver bits, scissors and tape measure, with non-slip handles. It is sold in pink and other colours, which changes the marketing rather than the tools.

Hi-Spec 13-Piece Mini Tool Kit

The bare minimum, and honest about it: thirteen pieces in a case Hi-Spec compares to a book, holding a small claw hammer, combination pliers, screwdrivers, hex keys, a 2-metre tape, plus a voltage tester and a roll of insulating tape. It covers flat-pack assembly and hanging things and then stops. Buy it for a desk drawer or a first rental, not as the only tools in a house. Listed at 700 g, which is about a pound and a half, it is the lightest kit here.

DEKOPRO 65-Piece Household Tool Set

A conventional household kit at a middling price, in a black blow-molded case DEKOPRO gives as 13 by 2.56 by 9.65 inches. The contents lean toward fasteners: hex key wrenches, lineman's and tongue-and-groove pliers, a rip claw hammer, tape measure, screwdriver sets, drive sockets and a quick-release ratchet, in chrome-finished steel. The company states its tools meet or exceed ANSI standards. Nothing here stands out, which is not the worst thing a starter kit can be.

Prostormer 93-Piece Small Tool Kit

The cheapest kit in the comparison, with a count padded by an assortment of wood screws, so the actual tool list is closer to a dozen: claw hammer, slip-joint pliers, scissors, utility knife, a bit driver with bits, tape measure, precision screwdrivers and eight hex keys. Those hex keys are metric only, which is right for flat-pack furniture and wrong for anything American-sized. Blow-molded case, heat-treated chrome finish. Listed at 1.7 kg, about 3.7 pounds.