A plumbing apprentice's starter tool list starts with hand tools: a tape measure, screwdrivers, 8-inch and 12-inch adjustable wrenches, a 14-inch pipe wrench, tongue-and-groove pliers, tube cutters, a pencil reamer, a level, a hammer, a striker and tin snips.
That is the core both documented apprentice tool lists in our research share, and neither list includes power tools.
Ask your shop what it furnishes before you spend, then buy the rest in stages behind your program's required list.
What tools should a first-year apprentice buy?
A first-year apprentice's documented requirements stop at hand tools.
UA Local 469 (Arizona) requires every dispatched journeyman and apprentice to carry the hand tools its agreement names, and UA Plumbers Local 78 (Los Angeles) hands its apprentice applicants a hand-tool list of their own — tape measure, wrenches, pliers, cutters, level, hammer.
Nothing on either list is powered — both are hand-tool lists.
So the first-year answer has three moves.
Buy the shared core.
Ask your shop what it furnishes before the first purchase — the answer changes your budget more than any list can.
Then let your program's required list settle the extras, because the programs themselves work exactly that way: the required tools are the ones each program names.
Still choosing the seat itself?
Our plumbing apprentice guide covers the role, pay and the routes in.
Must-have hand tools
UA Local 469 (Arizona) writes its list into the agreement itself: its 2024-2027 agreement requires every journeyman and apprentice dispatched to work to arrive with the hand tools on its Exhibit 2 list — an 18-inch toolbox or canvas bag, two 14-inch pipe wrenches, 12-inch and 8-inch adjustable wrenches, #15 and #20 tube cutters, a pencil reamer, side-cutting pliers, a 6-in-1 screwdriver, a torpedo level, a 25-foot tape, a 20-oz hammer, a striker, an 8-key Allen set, a chalk box with plumb bob, 440 and 420 Channellocks (tongue-and-groove pliers), a 3/8-inch ratchet with 9 sockets, and tin snips.
UA Plumbers Local 78 (Los Angeles) requires its apprentice applicants to supply their own required tools and transportation: a tape measure, a level, channel locks, hammers, blade and Phillips screwdrivers, 14-inch and 18-inch pipe wrenches, a striker, 8-inch and 12-inch crescent wrenches, tube cutters, tin snips, a pencil reamer, a hacksaw, a torque wrench and a nail puller.
Read the two together and the shared core — the items on both lists — is the apprentice must-have list below.
Both come from UA local programs, so treat them as documented examples rather than an industry rule: your program's list is the one that counts, and it overrides everything here.
- Tape measure — Local 469's list specifies the 25-foot length
- Screwdrivers — a 6-in-1 on the Local 469 list; blade and Phillips on Local 78's
- Adjustable wrenches — 8-inch and 12-inch on both lists (Local 78 says crescent)
- 14-inch pipe wrench — on both lists; Local 469 requires two, Local 78 pairs it with an 18-inch
- Tongue-and-groove pliers — 440 and 420 Channellocks on the Local 469 list; channel locks on Local 78's
- Tube cutters — #15 and #20 on the Local 469 list
- Pencil reamer — on both lists
- Level — a torpedo level on the Local 469 list
- Hammer — a 20-oz hammer on the Local 469 list
- Striker — on both lists
- Tin snips — on both lists
Nice-to-have tools
Nice-to-have, on this page, means something precise: a tool one documented list requires and the other does not.
That is the honest line between core and extras — not a ranking we invented, but the point where the two lists stop agreeing.
Extras are program-specific, not optional in any universal sense.
The items only Local 469 names: a second 14-inch pipe wrench (Local 469 requires two 14-inch wrenches; Local 78's list has one), the 18-inch toolbox or canvas bag (the only storage either list specifies), side-cutting pliers, an 8-key Allen set, a chalk box with plumb bob, and a 3/8-inch ratchet with 9 sockets.
The items only Local 78 names: an 18-inch pipe wrench (Local 78 pairs it with the 14-inch; Local 469's list has no 18-inch wrench), a hacksaw, a torque wrench and a nail puller.
None is on both lists — which is exactly why each belongs behind your program's list rather than ahead of it.
Buy the extras when your program names them or your assignments call for them, not before.
What the employer supplies
The only written employer-supply rules in our research are union agreements, and they run in opposite directions.
The Plumbers Local 130 agreement covering the Chicago area (2024-2028) puts everything except small pliers and a rule on the employer: journeymen furnish only small pliers and a rule, and all other tools are furnished by the employer.
Read that clause carefully — it names journeymen, not apprentices, and it is one local's contract, not a national norm.
UA Local 469 splits the difference.
Apprentices bring their Exhibit 2 hand tools, while the employer furnishes a secure lock-up area and replaces tools lost to fire, flood or forced-entry theft.
Beyond those agreements, the honest answer is that it varies.
The union contracts above are the only documented examples our research has — our research carries no documented package for what a non-union shop furnishes.
Treat any list claiming a standard package with suspicion, ask the question directly at the interview, and get the answer before your first purchase: the shop's answer is worth real money.
Budget and where to buy
Start with what we cannot tell you: prices.
Our research sourced no tool price ranges, so we publish none.
Price the kit yourself, at the suppliers you actually use, once the list above is trimmed to what your shop does not furnish.
Where to buy follows the same logic as what to buy: start from your program's required list.
Whoever runs your apprenticeship — a UA training center, a program coordinator, or the service manager who hired you — is the authority on the tools, and both documented programs work exactly this way: the required tools are the named ones.
Compare current prices at more than one supplier, buy the core once and deliberately, and stage everything else behind your assignments.
We do not name brands or rankings here — none appear in our sources, and this is not a shopping page.
The federal rule on required tool costs
Tools you buy vs the shop provides
The left column is what the documented lists put on the worker.
The right column is where the documented agreements put real obligations on the employer — and, past those agreements, a set of interview questions rather than answers, because our research documents no non-union norm.
| You buy | Ask the shop about |
|---|---|
| The shared hand-tool core: tape, screwdrivers, adjustable wrenches, 14-inch pipe wrench, tongue-and-groove pliers, tube cutters, pencil reamer, level, hammer, striker, tin snips | Power tools — neither documented list includes any |
| Your program's named extras — a second 14-inch pipe wrench, bag, side-cutting pliers, Allen keys, chalk box, ratchet set on one list; an 18-inch pipe wrench, hacksaw, torque wrench, nail puller on the other | Secure storage — Local 469's employer furnishes a lock-up area |
| Transportation — Local 78 tells apprentice applicants to supply their own | Loss replacement — Local 469's employer covers tools lost to fire, flood or forced-entry theft |
| Almost nothing, under one agreement — Local 130's clause names journeymen who furnish only small pliers and a rule | Everything else, under that same agreement — furnished by the employer |
Under all of it sits the federal backstop from the budget section: a tool purchase your employer requires cannot cut into the minimum wage or overtime you are owed.
Your before-day-one starter list
Condensed from the sections above, the before-day-one sequence runs in this order.
Get the required list in writing
Your program — a UA training center, a coordinator, or the service manager who hired you — names the tools; both documented programs work exactly that way. It overrides everything else on this page.Ask what the shop furnishes
One answer changes your budget more than any list: what the employer provides, whether there is secure storage, and what happens to tools lost on the job.Buy the shared core
The hand tools both documented lists name: a tape measure, screwdrivers, 8-inch and 12-inch adjustable wrenches, a 14-inch pipe wrench, tongue-and-groove pliers, tube cutters, a pencil reamer, a level, a hammer, a striker and tin snips.Add your program's extras
The single-list items your program names — the second 14-inch pipe wrench, bag, side-cutting pliers, Allen keys, chalk box and ratchet set on one documented list; the 18-inch pipe wrench, hacksaw, torque wrench and nail puller on the other.Stage the rest
Power tools and specialty equipment wait until the work reaches you and the shop's answers are in.
What day one actually feels like — the material runs, the load-out, working under a journeyman's direction — is our first-year plumbing apprentice article.
What to skip early
Power tools first: neither documented list includes a single one.
Both stop at hand tools, so neither documented program asks an apprentice to arrive with one.
If your first assignments include power-tool work, ask the shop whose tools those are — that is exactly the furnishes question from the employer section, and it is worth asking before you buy anything with a cord.
Then the specialty layer.
This page is the apprentice cut of the kit; the full toolkit a plumber builds toward, tool by tool and stage by stage, is our plumber tools list.
Buy toward it as the work calls for tools, not ahead of the work — the documented lists all name the tools they require, and none of them names specialty machinery for a first-year apprentice.
Career information, not legal advice. Tool requirements are set by your employer, your apprenticeship program and, where you have one, your union contract; the wage rule above is enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor. Confirm each with the body that makes it.