Chapter 3: Equipping a Home Chemistry Laboratory 13

Although it doesn’t take much special equipment to play around with chemistry, if you want

to do serious chemistry, you’ll need some real equipment. The essence of chemistry is

measuring things—masses, volumes, temperatures, voltages, and so on—and doing that

with reasonable accuracy demands equipment designed for the task.

Fortunately, although equipping a professional chemistry lab is very costly indeed,

equipping a home chemistry lab is relatively inexpensive. Professional labs may have

$10,000 balances and $1,500 pH meters, but we can learn just as much using a $50 or $100

student-grade balance and a $25 student-grade pH meter. The same is true for glassware

and other laboratory equipment.

By following the guidelines in this chapter, you can have a well-equipped home chemistry

lab for less than the cost of a decent set of golf clubs or a good bookshelf audio system. If

that is still more than you care to spend, there are numerous compromises and substitutions

you can make to keep the cost of your laboratory down

This chapter describes the purpose and function of basic laboratory equipment, lists the

types and amounts of equipment you need, recommends laboratory equipment suppliers

that focus on the needs of home chemists, and concludes with some thoughts about where

to locate your lab and how to keep things organized.

3

Equipping a Home Chemistry Laboratory

CREAH pE By THE CASE

Do not overlook the advantages of banding together with other

home schoolers or like-minded hobbyists to purchase laboratory

equipment—particularly glassware. Many vendors offer significant

discounts on box or case quantities of various items. For example,

although you probably don’t need an entire case of test tubes,

buying a full case may cost only half as much as buying the same

number of test tubes individually or in small quantities.