By trade
Fencing and decking calculators
Both of these are bought by the metre or the square metre and built by the post. A run of N bays needs N+1 posts, the last bay is rarely a whole one, and the concrete in the holes is more than half the material cost of a fence nobody thinks about.
- 21Calculators
- 4Parts of the site
How fencing and decking is measured
Linear metres at a height for fencing, square metres at a board pitch for decking, counts for posts and fixings, and volume for post-hole concrete. A deck's board count comes from the board's cover width plus its gap, not from its nominal width.
Renovation & Construction9
Materials & Quantities6
Auto/Utility5
Landscaping & Outdoor1
What gets left off a fencing and decking order
- Corner and end posts, which carry two directions of load and are usually a size up from the line posts.
- Post-hole concrete, which is the most under-ordered material on a fencing job because a bag's yield assumes a neater hole than anyone digs.
- Diagonal decking: the boards are longer than the width and both ends are cut at an angle, which is real material rather than a rounding.
- Finishing all four faces before the boards go down, which takes far more than coating the walking surface afterwards.
Job takeoffs3
Where fencers and deck builders meet the rest of the job: each runs one of these calculators, with every other trade in the same job beside it.
Worked examples2
A real job estimated step by step, with this trade's steps counted.
Comparisons5
Two ways of doing the same work, weighed against each other.
Planners2
Work this trade out from a space rather than from a job.