Toolstation Buying Guide 2026: The 6 Best Garden and DIY Buys

This is the Toolstation product with the best case for itself. It is a hand-pushed cordless mower with a brushless motor powered by two 18V, 4.0Ah batteries (both included, with a charger), seven cutting heights from 25 to 75mm, a 40-litre grass box and a rear roller for stripes. It carries a two-year guarantee. One oddity: the page lists a 36cm cutting width in its bullet points and 37cm everywhere else.

Its average is close to five stars over more than 300 reviews. The low ones say it is heavy (about 12.3kg) to turn on a small lawn or lift up steps, that the housing is mostly plastic, and that the grass box lid can sit badly. One owner’s mower failed after a month, and another found the charger overheated.

Spades break where the blade meets the shaft, and an all-steel spade removes the wooden shaft that usually goes first. This one has a solid forged blade, a tubular steel shaft (28 inches, 711mm overall) and a D-shaped handle with a wooden grip. It carries a two-year guarantee and, at £17.99, costs little more than a cheap wooden-handled spade.

The trade-off is weight, and it is the most common complaint: at 2.67kg, several reviewers found it too heavy for general garden use, and one returned it for that reason. Others found it blunt for cutting turf. A handful of low ratings report weak spots, a handle coming away and a weld that needed repair, but they are a small minority among over 200 reviews.

Flume is Toolstation’s own plumbing brand, and this TRV pair is the product behind its reputation, with more than 500 reviews. It is a brass, bi-directional thermostatic valve for vertical or horizontal mounting, with six settings from 6°C to 28°C and frost protection, plus the lockshield for the other end of the radiator. The TRV is made to EN215 and Flume gives a five-year guarantee.

The one-star reviews cluster around fit. Several buyers found the radiator tails’ threads too loose to seal even with plenty of PTFE tape, one valve snapped while being fitted, and others found it would not match their existing pipework. Check your pipe size and the tail thread on the radiator before you start, and keep the old tails.

Corrosion inhibitor is the least exciting thing you can buy for a house and one of the more useful. Fernox F1 protects mixed-metal heating systems against corrosion and limescale, with pH buffering to keep the water between 6.5 and 8.5, and the page says it also stops frequent venting of radiators. One 500ml bottle treats up to 130 litres, roughly 16 radiators. When we checked it was £15.59, down from £19.49.

The weakness is that you cannot see it work, and one three-star reviewer put that bluntly. The page itself says concentration should be checked every year at the boiler service. Low-rated reviews are otherwise about Toolstation: old stock in a previous label, and a sharp price rise between catalogues.

If water collects where it should not, this is the cheap insurance. It is an 1100W submersible pump with a stainless steel body, rated at up to 308 litres a minute, a maximum lift of 8m and a depth of 7m, with a float switch, a thermal cut-out, a 10m cable and a two-year guarantee. It takes solids up to 20mm, but the page warns against sand and continuous use, and asks for a ten-minute rest every hour.

Read two things before buying. The page says it is non-returnable once used, and one buyer whose pump spluttered on first use was refused an exchange for that reason. And several one-star reviewers say the impeller and its housing are plastic and break when small stones get in, while another found the float switch slow to trigger.

For a small garden hedge, a cordless trimmer is easier than any cable, and this one weighs about 2.6kg. It has a 51cm dual-action hardened steel blade with a 16mm cutting capacity, a dual safety switch and a blade sheath, and comes with one 2.0Ah battery and a 50-minute charger. The guarantee is two years.

Treat it as a light-duty tool. The motor is brushed, and the one-star reviews include several that smoked or burned out after a few sessions, plus a charger that never charged. Note also one buyer’s experience: the page says Hawksmoor batteries work across the cordless range, but he found this battery did not fit the strimmer he bought alongside it. Check compatibility in store before buying a bare tool.