Paint Calculator
Paint is sold by the litre and used by the square metre, and the exchange rate — the spreading rate on the tin — is a figure that assumes a smooth, sealed, already-painted surface. Bare plaster is not that. It…
Tool Category Home Improvement
Planning calculators for every stage of a home improvement job: measuring rooms and surfaces, working out material quantities for tiles, mortar, boards and insulation, costing labour and materials, and laying the whole thing out on a timeline. Home Improvement Calculators.
Tile Adhesive Calculator
Tile adhesive is sold by weight and used by area, and the rate is set almost entirely by the trowel: the notched edge leaves ridges of a certain height, and the height of those ridges is how much adhesive stays…
Grout Calculator
Grout fills a very thin void, and the amount you need is driven by three things: how much joint there is per square metre, how wide that joint is, and how deep it goes. The first of those is set…
Putty Calculator
Joint compound is used in passes, not coats. There is a bedding coat that presses the tape into the joint, a fill coat that brings it level, a second fill because the first one shrinks as it dries, and then…
Mortar Calculator
A brick wall is mostly brick. The mortar is the difference between the volume of the wall and the volume of the bricks in it, which sounds like a subtraction and is — but the subtraction undercounts, because bricks have…
Paint Cost Calculator
A painting quote looks like a paint problem and is usually a labour problem. The paint is the part you can price precisely, down to the litre, and it is often a third of the total or less; the hours…
Skirting Length Calculator
Skirting looks like the simplest measurement in a room: go round the walls, subtract the doors, buy that many metres. It is nearly that simple, and the parts that make it not simple are worth knowing before ordering. Every length…
Wallpaper Roll Calculator
Wallpaper is sold by the roll and used by the drop, and the number of drops a roll gives depends on three things: the height of the wall, the length of the roll, and whether the pattern has to be…
Room Area Calculator
Flooring is quoted per square metre and sold by the pack, and the gap between those two facts is where budgets go. This draws the floor as you measure it — rectangle, L shape or tapered — adds the cutting…
Ceiling Area Calculator
A flat ceiling is the same area as the floor under it, which is the useful shortcut and also the reason the figure gets forgotten — people measure the floor and assume. Then there is what interrupts it: a skylight,…