Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. How we test gear.

Choose the right shovel for gardening, landscape maintenance, a remodeling project, demolition, or when it’s time to lift and pry.

There are few things as useful as a shovel. It digs and moves a variety of materials, dirt, gravel, sand, snow and ice, debris, asphalt, and concrete. It scrapes, levers, chisels its way through roots, and is even helpful in fighting brush fires. The more you know about it, the more impressed you are by its versatility and broad applicability.

Below, we outline the two types of essential shovels, what their typical uses are, and how to put them to work in some—potentially surprising—applications that we’ve gleaned from our years of use and testing.

The most common shovels are the square nose and the round nose in the Number 2 size. These have steel blades which range from 10-gauge steel (the thickest) to 16-gauge (the thinnest), though the most common blade thicknesses are 12 and 14 gauge. The shovel blade starts out as a high-carbon bar of steel, which is heated red hot and then forged into shape. The blade and the socket, which connects the blade to the handle—are one piece of steel. The longer the socket length, the more you can lift with and generally harder you can be on the shovel, since having more socket length to hold the handle improves the shovel’s ability to withstand leverage.

‣ When you look at the back of the shovel blade, you will see one of two features. Either there’s a cavity where the steel has been formed to make the socket, or the cavity is closed off with a welded piece of steel.

‣ A shovel with a visible cavity on the back of the blade is known as an open-back. These shovels are intended for moving loose debris that will not stick and build up on the back of the blade, accumulating in the cavity below the socket. The absence of the welded plate on the back of the blade makes the shovel lighter. When the cavity is closed off, the shovel is called a closed-back. This is a heavy-duty feature more commonly found on shovels used to dig in moist materials and clay. If not for the welded steel plate that closes off the cavity, all that crud could stick in it. But it does add weight.

‣ The shovel’s step is self explanatory. It’s the part of the blade that’s forged forward, providing a surface on which you can put your foot for tough digging. The tougher the digging you expect to do with the shovel, the larger the step you should look for.

‣ The shovel’s handle may range from about 27 to 48 inches long; occasionally you will see some very long handles in the range of 60 inches. The handle can be a steel tube, wood, a variety of plastics, a plastic-and-wood composite, or wood wrapped in fiberglass. Industrial shovels almost always use either a wood-plastic composite or all-composite handle, with a few very heavy-duty models using the steel-tube handle. Shovels with short handles normally have a D grip on the end. This permits a better and more natural grasp and arm movement when digging in tight spaces. You can place your hand palm forward on the D grip, such as when chopping down with the shovel vertically. Or you can place your palm on the back of the D grip, which permits a better hand position and arm movement when lifting with the shovel horizontal.

‣ The socket that attaches the blade to the handle ranges from 8 to 12 inches. The longer the socket, the tougher the shovel since increasing socket length adds weight but helps the shovel to better withstand leverage.

Shovels with round noses (also called round points) are primarily dirt-digging tools. Use them for planting holes, extricating dead or diseased plants, turning over mulch into the soil, wildland fire fighting, and prying out rocks. (Though for prying out rocks that weigh more than 50 pounds, say, use a digging bar.)

Open-back shovels make amazingly effective fulcrums. Place the shovel face down on the ground, place the tip of the digging bar under what you want to lift (such as a fence) and place the length of the digging bar into the blade crevice. You can use your foot on the digging bar to provide force. The digging bar will pivot nicely in the crevice on the back of the blade.

Short-handle (27-inch) shovels are typically most useful in close quarters, such as working in a trench or wherever working conditions will not permit you to use a long-handle shovel. Another example of close-quarter digging occurs in flower beds, when planting or removing a shrub and an adjacent shrub (that you don’t want to disturb) is in the way. You’ll find a shovel with a 48-inch-long handle to be more versatile for general digging and certainly more effective if you encounter a rock or root you need to pry out. A longer handle will always provide more effective leverage than a short handle.

This U.S.-made shovel features a 14-gauge blade, forward-turned step, and a long socket double riveted to the polyester-coated fiberglass handle. These features add up to a sturdy shovel.

The Razorback’s 14-gauge blade is double riveted through an extra-long socket to the reinforced fiberglass handle. The shovel features the largest steps we know of, complete with drainage holes.

Craftsman’s fiberglass handle yard tools have always offered great durability at reasonable prices. And so it is with this tool, equipped with a 55-inch handle for an easier reach into deep holes.

For gardening in soft soils, this little shovel will do nicely. Its medium-length socket is riveted to an ash (or other hardwood) handle and topped with a polypropylene plastic D grip.

A shovel with a square nose is primarily for transferring material, such as sand, gravel, bank run gravel (a combination of sand and gravel), crushed stone, concrete, and mortar. It can also serve in place of a dust pan for scooping up demolition debris.

Square-nose shovels are quite agile in demolition work, where you can use them to pry off drywall and plaster, scoop loose-fill insulation out of floor and ceiling cavities, pry off wood trim, and lift appliances and plumbing fixtures for removal or to be broken up. In this application, we’re not talking precise demolition in which materials are recycled for further use. This is demolition meets guerrilla warfare.

With repeated use, especially on a hard surface such as concrete or asphalt, the center of the blade will wear away. But the upward-turned portion of the blade does not similarly wear, and this leaves two ears (for lack of a better description) on the blade that project forward. These can prevent the shovel from cutting cleanly into a corner. Picture trying to get at some loose debris in a basement and skimming the shovel along a concrete floor, stopping it by running it (lightly) into the basement wall. The ears prevent the shovel’s edge from making contact with the wall, leaving you unable to clean up debris in the corner where the wall and floor meet. The solution? Grind or file off the ears so that the shovel’s front edge is once again a continuous straight line, spanning from one upward turned edge to the other.

This is a good quality shovel with an ash (or other hardwood) handle and a polypropylene D grip handle. It’s ideal for home remodeling projects and gardening.

This RazorBack has a sharpened front edge to make it easier to dig into whatever you’re shoveling. It’s a contractor’s tool, with a long socket, double rivets, and a 59.5-inch hardwood handle.

The 33111 is a hybrid between a scoop and a square-nose shovel. Sometimes referred to as a coal shovel or street shovel, it excels at cleaning up along curbs or transferring gravel.

Take a high-carbon steel blade and fasten it to a 47-inch fiberglass handle with a rivet and a steel collar, as Ames did here, and you’ve got a square-nose shovel that should provide a lifetime of use around the house.