Tool Calculator

When most folks think of steel beam they think of a large piece of metal holding things up. In fact, it’s much cooler than that. … Read more

The classic DIYer heartbreak is a handrail that terminate before reaching landing. This is almost always because people don’t understand how a slope works: the … Read more

The two of you are standing in a bare room, staring at parallel boards on the ground. If you don’t have much construction experience, what … Read more

Ceiling Joist: A ceiling joist is a tension member that helps hold a house together rather than being a major structural hero. It resists the … Read more

A hip roof has clean lines where slopes intersects on all four corners, which makes this style look nice from the road. But it takes … Read more

From the road, board and batten siding appear straightforward: just vertical stripes of wood (or fiber cement) with thin banding between them. For a hundred … Read more

Most homeowners approach a metal roof project with the same nervous energy they bring to changing tires, except stakes are higher and materials cost more. … Read more

To most homeowners, a roof truss look like just a simple triangle held together by metal plates. What they don’t see is how physics keep … Read more

If you’ve ever owned a shed, the story begins with an imagined roof line, but by the time lumber shows up, it’s clear the actual … Read more

Gypsum board looks like stiff cardboard… It’s actually dense mineral wool sandwiched in paper, but it’s much heavier then you expect once you’re three sheets … Read more

When you’re a machinist standing in front of a rack of stock looking at a slab of metal that will take both hands to pick … Read more

Concreting is commonly thought of as pouring wet sand into place and letting it set. This perspective fail to account for structural needs of the … Read more

If you go shopping for smooth stones at your local landscape yard, chances are you envision yourself creating a tidy path through your garden, but … Read more

You can’t always see small changes in slope; a new patio might look flat against foundation even though it will actualy hold water. If there’s … Read more