Tools and Supplies You’ll Need After a Disaster Hits Your Town
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Estimated reading time: 21 minutes
It’s hard to turn on the news and not see another part of the country or the world devastated by a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or floods. The pictures start to look all the same after a while. Blocks of homes reduced to rubble while some neighborhoods are grateful that only a few walls and part of a roof are missing.
The latest is that many areas commonly exposed to natural disasters are being denied insurance from every major insurance company. That leaves some people with the hard choice of simply abandoning their homes or the equally difficult challenge of rebuilding themselves.
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Many who do their own repairs have help from family, friends and neighbors but that doesn’t make the job any easier. What can make things at least a little better is having the necessary tools and supplies to deal with massive repairs. And that could mean having more than one of each tool if you’re hoping that others can help with the work.
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The type and extent of damage to a structure depends a lot on the nature of the disaster, the type of construction, and it’s exposure to the elements.
It’s hard to say if anywhere is safe from some level of natural disasters these days, especially when you factor in the frequency and extremes fueled by climate change. The question is how bad can the damage be and what would it take to repair it?
Another image that shows up a lot is the home with some broken windows and a few missing shingles on the roof, while next door the neighbors home was wiped off the foundation and left in a heap across the street. Building construction varies and storms can be fickle. Sometimes it’s just a question of who has the good or bad luck.
You can collect every tool that Home Depot stocks and they’ll be worthless if you don’t have the knowledge and skills to use them. There are a few approaches and we’ll cover some of them in depth.
There are books about how to fix everything. They’re worth reading before disaster strikes, but even if you don’t have the chance they’ll be an invaluable resource that you can reference while you rebuild. Here are some major ones to consider:
There’s also no shortage of videos about how to do most anything. YouTube is a good source and you can buy video libraries for various trade skills. Here are links to some of the key videos:
Community Colleges and even Home Centers like Home Depot, Lowe’s and Menards offer classes about trade skills. Most are fairly basic but it gives you an opportunity to ask an expert any question related to the subject. They don’t cost much and some at home centers are free. If there’s a construction or trade skill that is a mystery to you, it might be worth taking a little time to learn more about it.
Major rebuilding projects are difficult to do alone. We mentioned the importance of having family and friends and maybe neighbors help with your project. The real value goes beyond an extra set of hands to the knowledge and trade skills they may possess.
How many of us have a brother who’s a plumber or a carpenter; an uncle who’s an electrician, a father-in-law who was a roofer, or a neighbor who was a mason? If you have people around you who can help with a highly experienced skill you’re in better shape. They may also have their own tools but it’s unlikely they’ll have supplies to offer you.
Take the time to think about who you know with trade skills that you can possibly ask or recruit for help. Family and friends are usually quick to offer assistance, and if you’ve been a good neighbor you may find a neighbor’s help is easy to request.
In fact, if do have a relative who has a trade skill it might be worth offering to help them with any projects they’re working on at their own homes right now. You’ll learn a lot and the best time to learn something is before you desperately need it.
What’s important is to think beyond the tool to the task. It makes sense to have a hammer in your tool kit but there are different types of hammers. You may need all of them and do you know what they are and what they do?
It makes sense to have a pry bar but here again, they come in different sizes and shapes. Think about what you or your group can realistically do and make sure you have the right tools to meet the tasks.
How many tools and the types of tools you assemble depends a lot on how much your home is at risk and your budget. Harbor Freight is known for low prices for tools and finding old tools at flea markets, garage sales and resale shops is always a good idea. A little rust won’t affect the operation of most tools and you could always restore them.
Another idea is to buy assembled tools kits. Some are customized to certain tasks like carpentry and masonry while others are generalized. Here are all of the tools you should consider if you think you may be doing some major repairs after a disaster:
And don’t forget, rebuilding anything after a disaster is fundamentally a two-step process defined by demolition followed by construction. You need to have tools that can do both.
We mentioned before that there are various hammer configurations but these are the basics.
That’s a lot of hammers but if you’re doing a significant amount of rebuilding there’s a good chance you’ll use all of them. You don’t need to buy the absolute best, just take a good look at it and think about how well it will hold up.
There’s a bit of a dilemma with saws related to whether they are electric powered or powered by hand. It’s a good bet the electricity will be out after a disaster but a generator can help you deal with a power outage. The safe bet is to have both electric and hand saws. Here’s a list and remember, some of these saws are necessary from the demolition phase of any rebuilding project.
Chain saws are also the tool of choice for any trees that have come down on your property during the disaster. They’re available as gas powered, electric and rechargeable battery. Gas may be the best for initial demolition especially if the power is out.
Some hand saws are used even when power saws are available. Many are used in place of powered saws when the electricity is out.
Hardware parts and pieces are common attachments in all manner of construction and all require a range of wrenches and plier types to either be loosened during demolition or tightened during construction.
This is when size matters and that means “various” sizes. From attaching large framing bolts to smaller attachments and fittings, wrenches are the only option for some construction and assembly tasks.
Most well-equipped tool benches have all of these wrenches and pliers and they will make any project large or small much, much easier.
This is fairly easy to do because screwdrivers are often sold in large and complete sets that feature both flathead screwdrivers and Phillips head screwdrivers. However, many screws have shown up lately with odd shaped heads.
An alternative to screwdrivers is a drill or hammer drill that allows you to use a variety of screw heads to handle the range of hardware screws that keep showing up. The screw heads are also sold in sets with a variety of drill heads. Buy the complete sets that have a range of sizes and types. You never know what you’re going to run into during demolition when it comes to screw head types.
Battery powered, rechargeable drills are the best choice because of their portability. And don’t forget to get a good selection of drill bits for wood, steel and stone.
It makes sense to have sets of each type of screwdriver although some of the more obscure screw heads will cost more than the standard slotted and Phillips heads. The most economical way have screwdrivers across a range of screw types is to buy a drill or impact drill and a complete set of screw heads.
These are usually required for any demolition work. They also come in a variety of shapes and sizes and because of the simplicity of their design are usually inexpensive. Here again, a range of sizes is good idea if you have any amount of extensive damage requiring demolition.
We mentioned drills but there are other power tools that make rebuilding and construction easier. Some are a bit obscure and highly specialized for unique building and demolition challenges.
This is a critical set of equipment especially for demolition. You can never know what kind of materials you’ll be exposed to when demolishing a structure, especially if it’s an older building constructed before some of the newer and more intelligent construction codes.
Some of the these are simple and obvious while others are a bit more obscure for particularly dangerous and hazardous materials. It’s a good idea to have all of this PPE equipment for both demolition and construction.
If there’s one thing people in disaster areas learn quickly it’s that supplies and materials for construction rapidly sell out at local lumberyards and home centers. That assumes that those locations weren’t also damaged as a result of events.
The telegram is that there are certain supplies you should have stockpiled in reserve. This is especially important if you live in one of those areas subject to frequent storms or other events. Here are some ideas that just seem to make sense from a supply standpoint.
The easiest way to stock up on hardware is to buy the kit assortments. They’ll have the most common hardware although you may need to make separate purchases for things like galvanized hardware.
There are tools that don’t fall into broad categories that you will need for demolition and construction. Here are some possibilities:
Anyone who has done any significant construction or demolition work will recognize most the tools and supplies we’ve covered. There’s more. How much you can assemble depends a lot on your motivation and your budget.
One thing to remember is to make it a mission to find tools and supplies for disaster preparedness. Look for them at flea markets, resale shops and garage sales. Tell your neighbors, family and friends that you’ll take any old tool they ever consider throwing away. A little rust is easy to remove and most old tools work as well as new ones.
Hopefully you’ll have a bit of luck and use your tools for furniture building and everyday repairs. Then again, if you live in an area subject to disasters and/or don’t have any home insurance—luck can be a capricious mistress.
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