16 Lowe's DIY Products Users Rate Highly

Spring has finally sprung, and that means it's almost DIY season. It also means you might be looking around your garage, shed, or workshop and planning out your next big project or weekend renovation and wondering what tools, gadgets, and products you can add to your collection this year.

In the DIY community, if you've got an idea for a project, there's a good chance someone else has had that idea or a similar one before. That means you might be able to find some guidance and learn about the tools other people wish they had when they tried to do what you're about to do. It's great to learn from your mistakes, but it's better to learn from the mistakes of others. With that in mind, we combed through the Lowe's digital shelves to locate the DIY products that Lowe's customers love the most, and to find out why.

Concrete is the most used building material in the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to work with. Pouring concrete the old fashioned way relies on heavy machinery and it's not inexpensive. Quikrete, by contrast, is relatively affordable and it can be mixed by hand in a bucket. It can be poured and have time to set all in the same day.

While people often refer to concrete and cement interchangeably, they are two separate things. Cement is actually one of the key ingredients in the production of concrete. When mixed with aggregate (sand, gravel, and rocks up to about an inch wide) and water it creates a strong and solid building material called concrete.

To use Quikrete, mix about one part water with five parts Quikrete. You're looking to make a paste about the same consistency as modeling clay or cookie dough. When the water and cement come into contact with each other, they undergo a chemical reaction called hydration, which binds the disparate ingredients into a strong and solid end product. It might not be professional grade, but it totally works for a wide range of at-home DIY projects, like securing a post or patching a driveway.

If you've only got the room and the budget for one ladder, a Little Giant Ladder might be a good choice. The Multi M22 ladder is made of lightweight aircraft-grade aluminum, with slip-resistant covers on the feet which protect your floor from blemishes and improves grip.

Thanks to the ladder's Rapid Lock system, the M22 can stand nine feet tall in an A-frame configuration or 19 feet tall when fully extended. It can also transform into a staircase or 90-degree wall configuration. Lastly, if you also have the Little Giant Trestle Brackets you can convert the ladder into a scaffolding system. The "M22" in the name refers to the estimated maximum reach you'll achieve standing at the top, but it assumes the user is at least 5.5 feet tall with a 12-inch vertical reach.

The Little Giant Ladder also comes in 14-foot (M14) and 18-foot (M18) sizes. The M22 has a 300 pound load capacity and when it's A-frame mode it can hold twice as much, with a 300 pound capacity on each side. So you and a partner can work together without wondering if the ladder is up to the task.

DIY projects have a way of creating plenty of messes, and a wet/dry vacuum can help you clean up those messes. Craftsman's 5-gallon wet/dry vacuum features a 4-hp motor and can hold a full 5 gallons of sawdust, dirt, debris, water, and other liquids.

It's a compact shop vacuum with a decent amount of suction, good for light to medium messes but probably not suitable for really big messes. The vacuum comes with everything you need to get started including a cartridge filter, a foam filter, a disposable dust bag, a floor nozzle, a crevice nozzle for getting into tight spaces and a gulper nozzle for sucking up larger debris. It also comes with a vacuum hose and three extension wands.

Some users have noted that the hose isn't long enough (five feet) or flexible enough for their preferences. If you have a workshop or garage mess, and you probably will, a good shop vacuum can make a big difference. That said, it's probably worth stopping by a Lowe's to check it out before spending any money.

As the weather gets warmer, a misting floor fan could be the thing that keeps you working under the hot sun on one of the many DIY projects you want to try when you would otherwise be rushing inside for the relief of air conditioning.

The Ego 18-inch high velocity indoor/outdoor misting floor fan can generate wind speeds of up to 20 mph, roughly double the airflow of your average 20-inch box fan. It has five different speeds, letting you move between 15,000 and 5,000 cubic feet per minute, and two misting modes so you can cool an area of roughly 540 square feet.

Using the recommended 5Ah ARC Lithium battery (sold separately) and at the lowest setting, this fan can run for up to 60 hours on a charge. Runtime will diminish if you run the fan harder. And when you're ready to move the fan someplace else, wheels on the bottom and a telescoping handle make it easy to transport.

If you live or work in a humid place, too much moisture can make some DIY projects difficult or impossible. Wood, for example, can swell when there's a lot of moisture in the air, and that can mess with your ability to reliably manipulate your material.

A dehumidifier can help to keep your workshop (or home) at a more workable moisture level. The Hisense 50-pint large room dehumidifier can pull moisture out of an area as large as 4,500 square feet. It runs quietly, generating only 48 dB(A) on the lowest setting.

It measures 24.8 inches high, 15.1 inches wide, 10.7 inches deep, and it can hold up to 1.9 gallons of moisture. It weighs 38.8 pounds when empty and you can add about 15 pounds with a full tank. An indicator lets you know when the bucket's full and when the filter needs to be removed and washed.

Painting isn't necessarily the most difficult DIY project, but it can be time consuming and monotonous. A paint sprayer can help you apply paint (or stain) to large areas with relative ease and a lot faster than you could with a brush.

The Wagner Flexio 3500 electric handheld HVLP paint sprayer comes with two nozzles for different tasks. The iSpray nozzle is designed for painting walls, decks, and fences while the detail finish nozzle is good for cabinets, trim, and furniture. It can cover an 8-foot by 10-foot area in as little as five minutes, cutting your time investment by as much as 90%.

The controls provide you 10 different speed choices and the reservoir can hold up to 48 ounces of paint or stain. Other controls let you adjust the spray pattern, air flow, liquid flow, and pattern width up to 12 inches. Users do report clogs and imperfections, noting the sprayer is most useful for outdoor jobs.

Leveling up your workshop with a good organizational system can start with something as simple as adding more shelf space. The 5-tier chrome metal wire utility shelving unit at Lowe's is made of steel with a chrome finish and can hold up to 350 pounds per shelf, as long as the load is evenly distributed. Just make sure your shelves are level, using the adjustable feet.

The shelves measure 72 inches high, 47.7 inches wide, and 18 inches deep. Assembling the metal wire shelving unit is relatively straightforward and doesn't require any tools. Instead, shelves slip over metal support poles at various heights. You can adjust the height of the shelves to your preferences, in one-inch increments, using the slip-sleeve locking system. Anchor the shelves to your wall to keep them secure and you'll have roughly 36 cubic feet of space to hold all of your projects.

Power drills are among the most common tools in existence, and probably the most popular power tools. Even if someone isn't a DIY enthusiast, they probably have a power drill somewhere in a closet or garage.

If you're looking for a new drill for yourself or for a gift, Lowe's customers like the Craftsman V20 20-volt MAX ½-inch keyless cordless drill. It features a two speed motor, capable of delivering up to 350 RPM on the low setting and 1,500 on high. It also has an LED work light under the drill head and a few other bells and whistles.

The Craftsman V20 isn't necessarily the fanciest drill in the world, but it's a popular option for everyday DIY work. And it comes with almost everything you need to get started, including a 1.5Ah battery and charger. All you need is some screws or drill bits and something to drill.

If you've ever had a medical cast cut off, you've had an encounter with an oscillating saw. They're perfect for the task because oscillating blades only cut when they encounter resistance from a hard surface. When the blade hits squishy flesh, it struggles to cut anything. That same oscillating technology is what powers the oscillating multi-tool.

A multi-tool can perform a wide range of tasks using a variety of attachments. You can use one to cut, sand, polish, and more. The DeWalt 20-volt MAX cordless brushless multi-tool at Lowe's is a popular choice for its versatility and ease of use.

A quick-change accessory system means you can swap out blades quickly without any tools. The kit comes with a blade for cutting wood with embedded nails, a fast-cut wood bland, and a universal accessory adapter. That last accessory makes your multi-tool compatible not only with DeWalt's other multi-tool blades, but also blades made by other companies.

Every good workshop probably needs at least one saw, and if you're only going to get one saw, it should probably be a circular saw. They are favored for their versatility and, unless you're doing specific projects which benefit from specific saw, a circular saw is a good bet.

The Skil 15-amp 7.25-inch corded circular saw can be useful for crosscuts (against the grain) and rip cuts (with the grain) to make wood shorter or narrower. You can use a circular saw to cut studs or joists, to trim doors or cut out notches for running pipes or cables.

It can be used to cut panels of plywood, particleboard, MDF (medium-density fiberboard), and more. With the right blade, a circular saw can cut metal, plastic, composites, laminate, and vinyl, too. Users say the Skil circular saw is lightweight, and its built-in laser guide makes it accurate to boot.

Soldering irons are surprisingly versatile tools, useful for electronics projects, stained glass art, splicing or fusing wires, wood burning, jewelry making, and more. The Bernzomatic micro torch soldering iron uses butane fuel instead of electrical resistance to heat the tip. That means you can take it with you and solder on the move.

The micro torch runs on butane fuel, which you can refill when it runs out. There are controls to adjust the intensity of the flame and it has a child resistant ignition approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The kit comes with a hot knife tip, a chisel point tip, a large solder tip, a fine point solder tip, a hot blower, 0.6 ounces of solder, a cleaning sponge, a stand, and a storage case. There's even a cover to protect you from burns when you're done working and the tool is still hot.

Sometimes when building with wood, you need to drive a screw at an angle to bind two adjacent pieces together. However, free-handing a screw at an angle can be a nightmare, which is why the pocket hole jig exists.

The Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig 320 lets you drill a channel for your fastener in advance, making it way easier to drive a screw. A pocket hole jib is usually a piece of hard molded plastic with an open channel running diagonally through it. You place the jig against one of your pieces of wood, secure it in place with the anti-slip base and clamp adapter, and drill through the channel. Remove the jig and drive a diagonal screw without slipping.

The kit comes with two drill guides, a removable spacer, and stops for depths of 0.5, 0.75, and 1.5 inches. It's not the most impressive product in the tool store, but it solves a common problem, which is really all a good tool needs to do.

A power drill can't do very much without drill bits. The Craftsman 14-piece gold oxide drill bit set is praised for being durable and for being durable, sharp, and strong, capable of drilling through a variety of materials including wood, plastic, and more.

Each bit is designed to keep a sharp edge even after heavy use and they are coated in gold oxide to provide resistance against rust and wear long-term. The Split Point feature delivers precise hole placement and burr-free holes.

The kit includes bits in the following sizes: 1/16-inch, 15/64-inch, 3/32-inch, 7/64-inch, (2) ⅛-inch, 9/64-in, 5/32-inch, 3/16-inch, 7/32-inch, ¼-inch, 5/16-inch, ⅜-inch, ½-inch. It also includes a storage case for keeping your bits safe and organized between uses. Between the variety of drill bit sizes and the entropy resistance provided by the gold oxide coating, this drill bit set could offer the only bits you'll need for a long time.

Headlamps are great for illuminating dark spaces while keeping your hands free. The Coast 365-Lumen 2-Mode LED Headlamp is made of durable, lightweight materials weighing just three ounces.

A hinged head lets you angle your light up and down as needed. There's a button that lets you switch to an ultra-wide circular beam to illuminate a larger area. You can think of it as spotlight mode. There are also controls for high, low, and red light outputs. Red light is useful for astronomy and other night time activities, when you need your eyes to stay adjusted to the darkness.

It comes with four hat clips that are compatible with a hard hat and a set of AAA batteries. When set on high, the light delivers 365 lumens with a beam distance of 38 meters, and the batteries will last about three hours and 15 minutes. On low, output drops to 45 lumens and the beam distance drops to 15 meters, but the batteries will last about 17 hours.

If you remember your elementary school lessons about simple machines, you'll remember that a lever amplifies your input force to provide a stronger output force. Put simply, with a lever you can move heavier things more easily.

A hand truck is a kind of lever on wheels, capable of moving things like refrigerators, washers, dryers, and other large or heavy objects up to 150 pounds. This one from Milwaukee has a slim toe plate for sliding under objects and a telescoping handle. It's worth noting that math tells us the longer the frame is, the more easily you can lift and move things.

It's made of durable steel and the toe plate features an array of openings to make it even more lightweight. The nose plate is 11 inches deep and 15 inches wide, and the frame handle extends to 39 inches tall. Between jobs, the handle compresses and the toe plate flips up, significantly reducing its profile for storage.

It's the worst when you gather your tools and crawl under your car, into a crawl space, or to some other inconvenient location, only to realize you've forgotten something on the other side of the room. With a mobile tool box, you can wheel your tools around with you and keep everything readily at hand.

The Craftsman Verastack rolling tool box tower is essentially a trio of tool box modules attached to a hand truck. Each module is a different size and they all stack together. There's an extra large one on the bottom, a medium-sized deep storage module for large tools, and a smaller module on top for organizing and storing smaller tools and materials. The clear lid on the top module will let you see what you've got in it at a glance. And the whole system is customizable, so you can swap out or rearrange modules at will.

Figuring out which DIY tools Lowe's customers love was no easy task, but we do it so you don't have to. We started by combing through products offered by Lowe's, looking especially for tools, gadgets, and other products that could be useful for one or more common DIY projects.

We then identified the products that were the most popular among consumers, not by looking at sales but by looking for the products people liked enough to leave a rating and review. If a product has the most reviews and/or the highest score, that's a good indication it's popular among buyers.

The value of these products is supported by at least 100 reviews (usually significantly more) from Lowe's customers and a rating of at least four stars. More than that, we paid attention to what those reviews said. We can't guarantee these are good tools, but whatever happens you'll be in good company.