Calculators for Contractors, Builders, Remodelers, Carpenters, Woodworkers | Hacker News Reader

Calculators for Contractors, Builders, Remodelers, Carpenters, Woodworkers

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233 pointsthrower12325 comments

So for lots of things like stairs and rafters you can use a good framing square http://www.johnsonlevel.com/News/FramingSquare

My goto build device is the speed square https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/a3999/4306646/

And for fractions, thank you Mr Shimel for teaching how to do fraction math.

But I do have a construction calculator that will figure sq feet, cu feet for concrete. It's a standalone device for about $30, but there are a ton of builder apps out there.

In my lifetime I want to see the US convert to metric. It’s so much easier.

I live in Canada where everything is metric. Contractors still use feet and inches. Concrete people talk about how many "yards" they are getting delivered (but the slips are in m³ – never figured that out).

I'd like to see the US switch as well, so that we can switch to 5x dimensional lumber

The Canadian experience is probably the short distance from the USA. Contractors in metric Australia use millimetres. If mm get a bit ridiculous then we use metres. The translation between the two is simple (1m = 1000mm). Context is usually enough to know which unit is being used.

Metric might be easier but there are some things I prefer in Imperial. Temperature can be interesting. 22 can be to cold in the winter and 23 can be to warm. I set my thermostat to Fahrenheit where I could control the temp more precisely (76). Speed is anther interesting measurement. When you drive 5 - 7 miles over the limit in the US (and along time ago in Canada), the police typically won't pull you over since the fine is basically per mile over. But in Canada that same 5-7 MPH is 8 -12 KPH and might get you a ticket since the fine is based per KPH over.

Like OP said, anyone in construction in Canada is using Imperial Measurements on the job site (even the guys from Europe). Just makes more sense somehow.

I grew up with both systems (Canada switched when I was a teenager) and to this day strangely still prefer Imperial for measurement, temperature, speed, and weight.

I think the units just don’t make physical sense. Three orders of magnitude between canonical units is just way too much. You always end with either too much precision or too little.

Having worked on Australia building sites I'd like to say that even at distances of 10m you still want to cut with a precision of 1mm. So it's common to hear that cut described as 10,000.

The big jump between units (mm and m) is really useful as even the most preoccupied of coworkers will notice if the scale is out by a thousand. If the units were closer -- say 10x -- then there would be more ordering errors. That explains the absence of centimetres (10mm) from construction sites even though centimetres is a popular household unit.

Millimetres dominates construction as being close to the width of a cut it is the perfect-size unit. It's simple to work with because you simply count: in imperial a tad more than 1⅜" is 1½"; in metric a tad more than 35 is 36.

Even though we retain the same size of timber as in the imperial past, those sizes are now expressed in metric -- common sizes are 90x35, 120x45. So you can measure up an old house for a repair and order in timber of the same size. There are not pre- and post-metric timbers.

That’s interesting about the mm. Most carpenters (having been one) will measure to the 1/16th of inch, rather than the 1/8th. If you’re cutting trim, sometimes you need a bit more precision. There’s a lingo for that, “11 and 5/16 plus a c* hair.” I suppose metric could be useful to move the job site towards political correctness...

For what it’s worth, 1/16” is also about a saw kerf. But in my experience, that doesn’t really matter because, as I was taught, you don’t take the line, but keep the blade completely on the waste side.

I compute in metric in the lab, and imperial in the garage. Seems to work out just fine. I don’t really see what the big deal is about switching to metric. Adding fractions of an inch is really not that hard.

And until they can get time into base 10 (60 seconds to the minute, 12 months in a year, 24 hours in day??) it all fails on consistency anyway.

i work in the us (optics, making) and switch between metric and english all the time. it's not a problem. it's not worth the effort to switch.

Unless you're designing a Mars lander :D

Apparently this is an obscure reference now. And it was an orbiter not a lander, but the point still stands.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

I recently wanted something similar to this for drywalling.

I'm a DIY homeowner renovating my basement and adding an office.

There were a lot of rules regarding where/how to use floating corners, what screw lengths/diameters to use, where to place the screws, etc. It was really hard to keep them straight, and in some areas I used way more screws than is ideal.

The issue was further complicated by inconsistent advice from the Gypsum Association (the main trade group, AFAICT) and various contractors who post advice on Youtube, diy.stackexchange.com, etc.

I really wished for a website that let me enter the shape and framing details of my room, and have it show me an optimal plan for the shape / placement of drywall pieces, and the attachment method.

I've found many pros have quite a bit of disagreement over these kinds of details, and that this varies quite a bit by region as well - often for good reason. For example, the framing style, climate, and available materials in one region many dictate a different way of doing things than in another.

Many sheetrockers join sheets on studs or joists, but that puts the edge onto the structure, and increases the likelihood that the joint will fail, particularly in the ceiling. It's actually better to join the sheets between structural members with a plywood or osb spline that floats with the wall. This moves the joint off of the structural member and also makes for a flatter (if not flat) joint.

Really high end sheetrockers will put up 2 sheets of drywall. The first is glued and screwed onto the structure. The 2nd is glued and screwed to the first layer. The screws are then removed from the outer layer when the glue sets. This makes getting a pop impossible, and makes the soundproofing a lot better.

Really high end sheetrockers will put up 2 sheets of drywall

That is the way I used to do it years ago back when I was hanging sheetrock as a summer job while I was at university. My boss at the time used to tell me that it's what should be done in high-end construction; the reason they don't elsewhere is to cut corners on the budget.

> It's actually better to join the sheets between structural members with a plywood or osb spline that floats with the wall. This moves the joint off of the structural member and also makes for a flatter (if not flat) joint.

When I was doing my research before starting to hang drywall, I had difficulty determining a few things about the various techniques being advocated:

- Is the technique required for what I'd consider "normal" quality results? I.e., when I walk into most houses I just don't notice anything about the drywalling. I was shooting for that level of quality.

- How well would the technique stand up over time, given the particulars about my climate, house age, framing style, etc.? I saw lots of confident statements about how the longevity / reliability of various techniques, but not much evidence that people had actually verified these statements empirically. (I.e., I saw few statements of the form "I've used technique X in over 200 houses in Georgia, and after 10 years I've only been made aware of problems with 3 of the jobs."

Pipe notching templates work exceedingly well (once you figure out printer scaling vagaries and measure multiple times) because you can just hack off what's marked on the outside of the pipe, and then take a grinding wheel to the inside angles until they fit flush with a sample pipe. But does anyone actually use a paper template to lay out dovetails?

The design is outdated but this seems to be made in pure vanilla JS and all the diagrams are rendered on canvas without any third party library. Pretty impressive if that's the case.

"The main Navigation tabs at top of each page are Metric versions of Calculators. If there's an Imperial version, directly under the main tab is a smaller 'Imperial' tab for the Feet and Inch version"

I think I'm too dumb to switch it to metric or I miss something.

There probably are already some out there, but I would love to have all of these formulas on an app.

There is - my brother is a contractor and uses DEWALT Mobile Pro

I clicked around a bit but I really disliked the experience.

At one point I thought I was clicking on a button to do something and it turns out that it was an ad and I was redirected to another site.

Resorting to dark patterns like this for ad clicks is scummy IMO.

I've made extensive use of the stair calculators, this site is excellent. Built 2 sets of staircases with landings so far. I hadn't thought to explore the rest of the site, I see plenty here that will be useful in the future.

7 years ago I worked for a company that builds pumps. I spent days on http://www.druckverlust.de/Online-Rechner/

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