Thomas Martinez

It’s a two-by-four, just another piece of lumber on hardware store rack… Until you realize that it is holding up your roof system, bracing walls … Read more

Leave the math to stringer angle calculator, but knowing why it matters will help avoid an expensive mistake. Most do-it-yourselfers begin by determining overall height … Read more

This happens until you build concrete steps, stand on them, and find out that each one vary by a fraction of an inch. Sure it’s … Read more

The roof is flat. No, you don’t call it that because the surface are actualy horizontal, you call it that because that’s where you stand. … Read more

Okay, maybe that’s what you thought: Snow load simply measures the height of the pile of snow sitting atop your roof. Nope; thats not it … Read more

Garage doors are heavy so you need to plan how to open your wall. Why? If you remove studs to have a bigger door (for … Read more

A bad deck feels bad before it’s seen. When you walk across the floor, you’ll notice it bouncing. That bounce is like a warning light … Read more

All spans aren’t created equal: If you assume each is alike, your ceiling sags. Nailing in two-by-sixes might seem like a job, but wood isn’t … Read more

Before you take your first cut, you have to do some careful math to frame a gable roof. That angle will be the difference between … Read more

The formula: Knowing this will help you estimate siding material well, it’s not quite as simple as “how much wall area do I have?” You … Read more

This is the driveway. Don’t order aggregate based off a rough guess at depth by multiplying that figure times the length and width of your … Read more

All home renovations come with this magical moment where the blueprints collide with reality, and you learn just how far wood can stretch over an … Read more

How many times are you frustrated on the jobsite, realizing that your block wall is three inches too short? Your string line’s out, mortar’s mixed, … Read more

At some point in all your masonry projects, the mental math falls apart. There’s an empty foundation, and you’re picturing how it will look with … Read more