Best Electrician Tools and Code Books

Notes from the Field

When you're new to the trade, everybody tells you what you need to buy. What they don't tell you is that you don't need everything on this list on day 1. You will absolutely need a Klein 11-in-1 and a decent pair of side cutters. Definitely doesn't hurt to have a non-contact tester, and the patience to hand over a borrowed multimeter to whoever is teaching you. The rest of it you'll accumulate over the first 2-3 years on the truck.

The two things worth fighting about on a residential service call are meters, and bags. When switching out a receptacle, the Fluke 117 is going to be overkill. But if you're chasing a ghost on a multi-wire branch circuit, and your budget meter is showing 47 volts on a hot conductor that should read 120, you'll wish you had made the investment. The LoZ mode on the 117 loads the circuit and makes induced voltage disappear. It's the difference between troubleshooting and guessing. As for the bag, every apprentice starts out with the Klein bucket-style tote, and every journeyman who's been at it 5+ years has graduated to a Veto. The Veto is expensive once, the bucket is cheap 5 times.

The code book recommendations always trip people up. The 2023 NEC is actually the current edition, and the book any post-2024 licensing exam is going to be based on. Depending on your state, they may still be enforcing the 2020 cycle (or worse, 2017) on actual job sites. Buy the edition your state has adopted for daily field reference, but buy the 2023 edition if you're prepping for an exam. Most working electricians own both at some point. Mike Holt's Understanding the NEC is the text that helps the code make sense, while Ugly's lives in the truck because the actual code book lives at home.

One thing I'll flag that isn't on this list, a decent headlamp. Petzl Tikka or Coast HL7 range. You'll be in crawl spaces and attics in the dark, more than you'd expect. The cheap drugstore versions die regularly and always at the worst possible time.