Project guides

How thick to pour a concrete patio, driveway, shed pad or garage floor, what each extra inch costs in concrete, and what goes under the slab.

Bags of concrete per fence post by hole size and depth, for 4x4 and 6x6 posts, with the formula, a worked example for a whole fence and setting tips.

A cubic yard of gravel weighs about 1.3 to 1.5 tons. See weights for crushed stone, crusher run, pea gravel, sand and topsoil, and convert yards to tons.

Count deck boards row by row: rows from the board width plus gap, boards per row from the board length. Includes a chart of the best board length for each deck size.

Pitch multipliers from 1/12 to 18/12 with roof angles and hip and valley factors. Multiply the footprint by the multiplier to get the real roof area.

The IRC allows risers up to 7 3/4 in and treads down to 10 in, but comfortable stairs sit nearer 7 in by 11 in. The rules of thumb, with a chart and an example.

How much extra tile to buy for straight, offset, diagonal and herringbone layouts, why small rooms waste more, and how waste changes the box count.

Measure the square footage of L-shaped and irregular rooms by splitting them into rectangles, with diagrams, formulas for odd shapes and a worked example.

Work out boxes of vinyl plank flooring from your square footage and the coverage on the box, with a chart for common box sizes and a worked example.

A 12x12 room with 8 ft walls takes 12 sheets of 4x8 drywall for the walls and 5 for the ceiling. See counts for 9 and 10 ft walls and 4x12 sheets.

A 12x12 room with 8 ft walls takes about 2 gallons of paint for two coats. See the coverage chart for 10x10 to 20x20 rooms, with and without the ceiling.