What safety equipment do I need for DIY?

DIY injuries cluster in a small number of predictable places: eyes, lungs, hands and hearing. Each has an inexpensive answer, and the useful question is not what to buy but what rating to buy.

Safety

Step by step

1. Buy eye protection and wear it for everything.Drilling, cutting, grinding, anything overhead, and anything with chemicals. Look for a mark showing the impact rating. Wraparound is better than flat lenses; over-glasses versions exist if you wear spectacles.
2. Get a properly rated dust mask.FFP2 as a working minimum, FFP3 for fine dust — MDF, plaster, brick, silica, old paint. A cheap unrated 'nuisance' mask filters almost nothing that matters and gives false confidence.
3. Fit the mask to your face.A mask that leaks around the edges provides the protection of no mask. Mould the nose bar, check both straps, and be aware that a beard prevents any disposable mask sealing.
4. Match gloves to the hazard.Cut-resistant for blades and sheet metal, chemical-resistant nitrile for solvents and paint stripper, general grip gloves for handling timber. One pair does not cover all three.
5. Do not wear gloves near rotating tools.Drills, lathes and anything spinning can catch a glove and pull a hand in. This is the one case where gloves make things more dangerous.
6. Use ear defenders with power tools.Circular saws, planers, angle grinders and SDS drills all exceed the level where damage accumulates. Hearing loss is gradual, permanent and completely preventable.
7. Get knee pads for any floor work.Laying flooring, tiling, skirting, plumbing under a sink. Unglamorous and the thing people most regret not having after a day of it.
8. Add a respirator for solvents and spraying.Dust masks do not filter vapour. Painting in an enclosed space, using solvent strippers or spraying needs a cartridge respirator rated for organic vapour, plus ventilation.
9. Wear proper footwear for anything heavy.Toe protection for slabs, timber, appliances and anything you are lifting. Dropped materials are a common and avoidable injury.
10. Control the dust as well as filtering it.Extraction on the tool, a window open, a dust sheet at the door. Protective equipment is the last line, not the first — reducing the dust is better than filtering it.

Tips

• Keep the equipment with the tools rather than in a drawer. Protection you have to go and find does not get worn.
• Disposable masks are single-session items. A mask used across a week of plastering is saturated and no longer working properly.
• Buy safety glasses in a multipack. They scratch, they get lost, and the reason people skip them is usually that the one pair is somewhere else.

Common mistakes

• Using an unrated dust mask for fine dust — It filters visible particles and lets through the fine fraction that reaches deep into the lungs. FFP2 or FFP3 is the meaningful line.
• Wearing gloves while drilling — A rotating bit catches loose fabric and draws the hand in. Bare hands are safer around anything that spins.

Questions people ask