Craft Quantities: construction material calculators

Makes a file the reader restores in My Project on craftquantities.com, holding the lines of calculators, takeoffs, houses, a room plan or a drawing, each recomputed as the site adds it. Nothing is stored or sent; no prices.

How many bags of concrete, sheets of drywall or plasterboard, tiles, bricks, studs, litres or gallons of paint, tonnes of gravel, cubic yards or m³ does a job take, and how much? Runs the site's cited calculator as its page does and returns the quantity in metric and US customary, the inputs used, sources, a citation and a page link. Lengths carry units ("12 ft"). No prices.

Is a builder's quote right on quantities? Reads a contractor's quote (pasted text) against the reader's own job and returns each quoted quantity against the range the job's calculators give, the lines it leaves out or adds, and the questions to ask. Money is removed and not judged; a difference is a question, not a verdict.

How many cubic yards in 2 m³, square feet in 30 m², litres in 5 gallons, kPa in 50 psi? Converts between construction units with the exact factors the site's calculators apply, and returns the value and the factor.

Draws a plan on the Construction Canvas — a room with doors and windows, a deck, patio, bed or path, a fence of legs and turns, a whole house from a few figures, drawing commands or a canvas document — and returns every material, plans, labour hours, a one-click link that opens it on the canvas, and a file. It does not size structure.

What causes a crack, damp patch, leak or ceiling stain, mould, a tripping breaker, banging pipes or a sticking door? Returns the site's diagnosis pages for a defect in plain words: candidate causes, what tells them apart, checks in order and when to call a professional; ambiguous words return candidates. It does not say which cause it is.

How much material for a whole house? The House Estimator: a rectangular one- or two-storey house from a few figures (footprint, walls, roof, windows, doors), and every quantity of its footing, slab, walls, openings and roof, with what to order, assumptions, plans and labour hours. It counts; it does not design a structure. No prices.

Reads one Craft Quantities page in full as plain text, by id: a construction calculator's inputs, units, opening values and sources; a takeoff's measurements and build-up choices; a worked example's steps; or a defect diagnosis's causes, checks and when to call a professional.

Which figures does a concrete, drywall, paint, tile or roofing calculator need? Returns each input's id, the units it accepts, the value its page opens on in metric and US customary, its range and options, with the calculator's sources and version.

How is an estimate put together? Returns a real job worked step by step on the site (a bathroom refit, a garden room slab …): the measurements, the calculators in order and why, the figure each step pins and the waste chosen.

What does the room planner need for a room, bathroom, slab, deck, driveway, fence, loft, retaining wall, exterior wall or stair? Returns its figures, surfaces and finishes, scope questions, trades and rows, with their ids.

Where does a figure come from, and how is it cited? Returns a calculator's sources as it cites them, the codes and standards they name, the site's standards pages, and a citation in plain, APA, Harvard and BibTeX. It adds no source the calculator does not cite.

What does the takeoff for a concrete slab, framed wall, deck, bathroom, roof or fence ask for? Returns its measurements with units and opening figures, its build-up choices, the calculators it runs and what it leaves out.

Turns a supplier's or builder's quote the reader has, prices and all, into a My Project file, as the site's Quote to Estimate does, and checks its own arithmetic. The prices are the reader's figures from their document, not the site's.

Which building code or standard covers wiring, stairs, gas, drainage, concrete or roofing in the US, Canada, the UK or Australia (or a country mapped to one), and who publishes it, with the site's standards pages. It does not say which edition is in force or from when: adoption is local, and the answer names who decides.

Returns a link that opens a construction calculator's page on craftquantities.com with the reader's figures filled in and their unit system, so a person can see or change the working on the page.

Materials for a renovation or extension of several rooms: up to 12 spaces (rooms, bathrooms, slabs, decks …) and a roof over them, planned together in one planner model, with each space's rows, every line together, labour hours and the plan. Quantities only; it does not size structure.

What materials does a room, bathroom, deck, patio slab, driveway, fence, loft, retaining wall or stair need? Plans one space as the site's planner does, with the reader's finishes (paint, tile, flooring, trim), and returns every row, what it still needs, what is not built and why, and labour hours. Quantities only; it does not size structure.

Re-runs every pinned step of a worked construction estimate now, in both unit systems, and returns whether each still meets the published figure.

What materials does a whole job take: a concrete slab, a framed wall, a deck, a bathroom, a roof, a fence? Works the job's takeoff as its page does and returns every material quantity, what to order, waste allowances, both unit systems, labour hours (not a price), what is not counted, a citation and a page link. It does not size load-bearing members.

Finds Craft Quantities pages for a construction question in US, UK or Australian words — how much concrete, drywall, paint, tile, gravel or lumber; a takeoff for a deck, slab or roof; a worked example; a defect diagnosis such as a tripping breaker — and returns ids, titles and links, plus the best calculator's slug and the inputs it takes. It computes nothing itself.

How much will it cover? From what the reader already has (20 drywall sheets, 24 gal of paint, 500 bricks, bags of concrete, a yard of gravel) to the area and the room, deck, wall or slab it covers, as the site's Solve Backwards page works it, waste taken off. It does not size structure: slab thickness and reinforcement are an engineer's.

Sends nothing: turns a materials list or bill of materials (the lines a takeoff, house, plan or calculation returns, or the reader's own) into a request for quote to suppliers, as the site's does — Markdown to paste, a CSV, the site's link a merchant opens to price it, and a My Project file. It carries no price.

What is plasterboard called in the US, skirting in Canada, render in Australia? Returns a building-trade word in each market's usage, how close each equivalent is, and the false-friend warning where the same word means something else, from the site's glossary, with its page. Words only: no figures.