workshop.lifehacker.com: A construction calculator has specific functions that allow you to more easily do construction-related calculations. Some people swear by them, and others paid a lot of attention in fifth-grade geometry and don't need them. What do you think?
I spent a good five years working on houses before I realized that construction calculators were a thing, and that they did useful calculations relating to building things.
6 comments:
Dewalt has a fantastic construction calculator app that is free and can perform all the tasks of a standard construction calculator. There are lots of extras that you can pay for but I love using my. Other similar apps try to force all of the functionality on to one screen and dewalt breaks it up. What is extremely nice about this app is you can do what ever math you need to develop your dimensions and save and recall them later for other calculations. Other functions that come free include conversions, concrete slab calculations, paint and studs.
I personally have always enjoyed trying to do the math myself but since america refuses to do the logical thing, calculating fractions on the floor just gets tedious and having this app makes everything faster. When I am drafting I keep a fractional conversion chart above my desk and use decimal inches instead of fractional inches most of the time.
I think the same argument against normal calculators in classrooms applies here. You should have to learn and be able to do those kind of calculations without a calculator before you "earn" the right to use one. Understanding how the math works is just as important as getting the right answer. What happens when you are on a job site and realize that you forgot your fancy construction calculator and now don't know how or can't do the math you need to get the job done? By learning the math yourself first you also get a better understanding of what answer looks right even if you are using a calculator. What happens if you accidentally use the incorrect number or hit the wrong button and just blindly follow what the calculator says instead of realizing that what it's telling you can't possibly be the right answer and that you must have made a mistake somewhere. I'm not saying I'm against them, in fact I'm all for construction calculators. As one of the comments says, using one frees up more room in your brain to think about other things related to your project. I just think that you need to learn all of the math the hard way before you get to take shortcuts.
I keep a construction calculator in my gig/toolbox and I have one of the apps on my phone. I’ll also be the first to admit that since I was a kid, math has never been my best subject…does that make me a bad TD or carpenter, not in my mind. It just means I have to work a little harder in that area sometimes, however, what it actually means is that I can’t do math in my head to save my life sometimes. Never have, hopefully someday I will. So for me, a calculator is a saving grace at times, if for nothing else but to double check the math I did on the scratch paper. Now I agree with Philip, you should know the simple math, its incredible helpful….but everyone is different. Maybe that’s why I’m a better draftsman or estimator/manager? Maybe that’s just a crappy excuse for me to say that, I don’t know. All I know is that I like my scratch paper, scale rule and construction calculator, a lot.
I believe that we should always be aware of every tool that is possibly useful in order to benefit our jobs and our lives. In this case I believe that this app is highly useful in design and construction because you are able to keep all of your calculations for future reference, you can keep it all in one place and share it, and most of all you can do the math quickly and possibly faster than if you did it on paper. In conclusion I think that if you are one of those people that can't do conversions quickly in your head then this app is an option to improve your process.
Just like in high school, I think the argument should be: you need to understand how to do everything in your head, but you also should be able to use all the tools available to you. If a construction calculator speeds up your workflow, then I think it's a no brainer whether you should use it or not. When you're on a gig, I would argue that people mostly care about your output and product, not whether you relied on a tool or did it the "old fashioned way." Although carpentry is not my main area of expertise, I do have the DeWalt app on my phone which I have used on occasion.
This sounds really cool! I didn't actually know that these existed, but as a person who often loses track of her thoughts when doing conversions or calculating for a build, this is something I would be very interested in using. This sounds really cool! I didn't actually know that these existed, but as a person who often loses track of her thoughts when doing conversions or calculating for a build, this is something I would be very interested in using. I do wonder, though, how this might detract from the skill level/speed without technology of people in the shop.
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