Equipping a school chemistry lab: a bill-of-materials approach
Buying Guide · 8 min read · Vitreon technical desk
A 12-bench senior secondary lab, itemised: what to buy per bench, what to buy per lab, and where breakage actually happens.
01Think per-bench, then per-lab
Per bench of two students: 6 beakers (spread 50–500 mL), 4 conical flasks, 2 measuring cylinders, a burette with stand, 2 pipettes with filler, a funnel, 12 test tubes with rack and holder, a wash bottle, glass rods and a spirit lamp or access to a hotplate. Per lab: reagent bottles in bulk, desiccator, distillation kit, balance access and demonstration glassware.
02Where breakage happens
Our replacement-order data across 2,400 school labs is unambiguous: test tubes, 10 mL measuring cylinders and 100 mL beakers account for 70 % of annual breakage. Order these at 2× initial quantity — the crate price beats emergency reorders and the lab never stalls mid-term.
03Student grade vs Class B
Students do not need Class B accuracy for salt analysis — they need glass that survives being dropped into a sink. Student-grade ware with thicker walls costs less and lasts longer. Reserve one Class B volumetric set per bench for the titration term.
04Use the Lab Setup Wizard
Our wizard turns bench count and syllabus into a complete itemised bill of materials with crate-level pricing in about two minutes, ready to attach to a tender or send as an RFQ.