Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Renovation & Construction

Decks, fences and garden structures

Timber outside the house — the platform, the boundary and the things standing in between.

  • 10Calculators
  • 10Work in imperial
  • 10Work in metric

What this covers

Deck boards and the joists and footings under them, balusters and cable railing infill, the reverse question of what area a pile of boards will cover, fence pickets, pergola post spacing, and the skids and anchors a shed sits on.

What decides which one you need

Spacing, in every one of them, and it is never the spacing that looks right. A baluster gap is a maximum set by what a child can pass through, a joist spacing is set by the board's span and the load, a picket gap is chosen for looks and then has to divide into the run, and a pergola's posts are set by the rafter above them. Each page asks for its spacing rather than assuming a common one.

What this does not cover

The stain and the preservative, which are with the decorator, and paving or a concrete base, which is hardscape.

Every calculator in this family

10 calculators

Deck Baluster Calculator

Calculate how many balusters (railing spindles) keep every gap within the guard's sphere rule: 4 in in imperial, 100 mm in metric.

Imperial / Metric

Deck Board Calculator

Estimate how many deck boards you need, accounting for board width and the gap left between boards.

Imperial / Metric

Deck Footing Calculator

Estimate the minimum number of footings needed around a deck's perimeter based on standard spacing.

Imperial / Metric

Deck Joist Span and Size Calculator

Size a deck joist from first principles: bending and deflection at your span, spacing, load and design values, and how hard a chosen section works.

Imperial / Metric

Fence Picket Calculator

Estimate how many fence pickets you need based on fence length, picket width, and gap spacing.

Imperial / Metric

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