BuildMetric is an independent publisher of construction calculators and technical reference guides — not a software vendor, not a lead-generation funnel, and not a content farm. We build the tools we wish existed when we were on site, and we write the explanations we wished someone had given us when we were learning.
Formulas, not folklore. If we cannot cite the math, we do not publish the tool.
Free, always. No paywall, no forced sign-up, no gated results.
Human-reviewed. Every calculator is checked by a practising professional before it goes live.
Honest about limits. We do not pretend to be your engineer of record.
Open to correction. Report a mistake and we publish a fix with a version note.
Curious how we apply these rules? See our Disclaimer and Contact pages.
Our Story
BuildMetric started — like many bad ideas that turn out to be good ones — with an argument on a building site. It was a Friday afternoon on a residential roof replacement in the north of England. The drawings specified 30°. The roofer had been told "roughly 7 in 12." A subcontractor had written "6:12" on the back of a delivery note. Three people, one roof, three numbers, and every one of them was being used as if it meant the same thing. It didn't. The material order was short. The ridge board had to be re-cut. And a four-hour conversation about conversion factors followed.
That conversation stayed with us. Not because the numbers were difficult — they are trivial trigonometry — but because the same numbers mean different things to different trades in different countries, and there was no single, well-explained tool that reconciled them. Existing calculators were either marketing funnels for material suppliers, hidden behind paywalls, or written by someone who clearly had never held a nail gun. Some returned answers without explaining the formula. Others explained the formula but used the wrong one. A few confidently mixed slope percentage with rafter multiplier — a mistake we estimate inflates material orders on thousands of projects every year.
BuildMetric was built to be the resource we could not find. It began as a single roof pitch calculator, written on a laptop between site visits, and grew — slowly, deliberately — into a library of construction calculators covering concrete volumes, timber framing, paint coverage, drywall estimation and other everyday estimating tasks. Every tool had to pass the same three tests before publication: the formula had to be derivable from first principles, the output had to be verifiable against a known reference case, and the surrounding explanation had to be written in plain language that a competent tradesperson could follow without a maths degree.
We are not a software company that happens to write about construction. We are construction people — quantity surveyors, structural engineers, licensed roofing contractors — who happen to have learned to build web tools. That distinction matters. It means our default question is not "what feature can we add?" but "what would actually help someone standing on a scaffold with a tape measure and a phone?" It means we test our tools against the jobs we have worked on ourselves. And it means we are comfortable saying, often and explicitly, that a calculator is not a substitute for professional judgement — because we have all seen what happens when it is treated as one.
We publish for three markets — the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia — because those are the three regulatory environments our team knows intimately. We do not pretend to cover every jurisdiction. Where codes, units and standards differ, we say so explicitly rather than flattening the differences into a single "international" answer. A roof pitch that is compliant in Florida may need a different underlay in the Scottish Highlands, and a timber frame that passes AS 1684 in Queensland may not pass an equivalent check under IRC in Minnesota. Our calculators apply universal mathematics; the surrounding guides explain the local context that mathematics has to be applied in.
The name "BuildMetric" was chosen because it captures both halves of what we do: the act of building, and the discipline of measuring it precisely. It is not a promise that every answer will be perfect. It is a promise that every answer will be measurable, explainable and open to correction. If you find that we have fallen short of that promise — if a formula is wrong, a unit is confused, a code reference is out of date — we want to hear from you. Corrections are how the library gets better. And on a site that is defined by its willingness to publish honest numbers, being open to correction is not weakness; it is the whole point.
If a calculator cannot explain its formula in one sentence, it should not be publishing a number.
Written By
Practitioners
Not content writers
Regions
US · UK · AU
Not a global catch-all
Business Model
Ads + Affiliates
No paid reviews, ever
Who We Are
A small, deliberately multi-disciplinary team — quantity surveyors, structural engineers, licensed contractors and technical editors. Every tool is reviewed by at least one practising professional.
Founding Editor
Quantity Surveyor · MRICS
15 years in cost estimation across residential and light commercial projects in the UK and Australia. Owns the estimating and material-quantity toolchain.
Structural Review
PE (US) · CEng (UK)
Chartered structural engineer with experience in timber, steel and concrete framing across US, UK and Australian residential codes.
Field Review
Roofing · Framing
Licensed roofing and framing contractor with 20+ years of residential and light commercial field experience across North America.
Technical Writing
Plain-Language Specialist
Turns engineer-reviewed calculations into plain-language guides that tradespeople can actually use on site — without jargon or maths-heavy tangents.
How We Build Trust
Every calculator and guide passes through five review stages before it is published. Nothing bypasses them — not even small updates.
A topic is drafted based on real field questions and reference to the current code edition.
A practising professional verifies the formula, worked examples and code references.
A technical editor rewrites for clarity — no jargon, no maths-heavy tangents, no fluff.
Tool is tested against known reference cases in imperial and metric. Output must match.
Published with a visible version number and date. Reviewed again each year.
Each calculator and guide has a named reviewer, a visible version number and an update date. When something changes — whether a formula is corrected, a code reference is updated, or a new unit is added — that change is logged publicly in the page's history.
Transparency
Every calculator and guide on this site is free, and will stay free. Here is exactly how that works — no hidden funnels, no gated results, no dark patterns.
We run a small number of clearly marked display ad slots served by third-party ad networks. Ads are labelled and never overlay the calculator results. We do not serve pop-ups, auto-playing video, or interstitial ads that block reading.
Where our guides reference specific products — a particular membrane, a tool, a material sample — we may include an affiliate link to a supplier. If you buy through that link, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Red Line
Revenue Mix
Approximate breakdown based on the last 12 months of operations. Sponsorships are always clearly marked and never influence editorial content.
Detailed legal framework, liability boundaries and privacy commitments are covered in our companion documents:
Brand or manufacturer interested in a placement? Request our media kit.
ads@buildmetric.orgOur Journey
Three years of tools, reviews and corrections — from a single roof pitch calculator to a library of 40+ free professional resources.
BuildMetric launches with a single tool: the Roof Pitch Calculator. Built from scratch, tested against 40+ reference cases in imperial and metric, and published with a full technical explainer.
Concrete volume, stud count and paint coverage calculators added. First editorial review board formed — quantity surveyor + structural engineer on retainer.
Every calculator page now displays a visible version number and last-updated date. Corrections reported by users are logged publicly and credited (with permission).
Full audit of every calculator against IRC 2021, BS 5534 and AS 1684. Regional differences documented explicitly instead of flattened into a single "international" answer.
Read-only API endpoints released for all calculators, alongside CSV and PDF batch export. Intended for small estimating teams who want to integrate results into their own takeoff workflows — still free, still no sign-up.
The library now spans roofing, concrete, framing, finishes and estimating. All tools remain free, human-reviewed and open to correction. Over 250 user-reported fixes have been validated and published with version notes since launch.
Roadmap · 2026–2027
Stair & Riser Calculator
IRC/BS/AS compliant rise-run-balcove tool · 2026
Rebar & Concrete Reinforcement
Bar spacing, cover, lap-length estimates · 2026
Offline PWA Mode
Cache calculations for site use · 2026
Structural Load Calculator
Preliminary dead/live load estimator · 2027
Subject to technical and editorial review. No sponsor can push a tool up this list.
Independence
Practising engineer or surveyor? We accept occasional guest contributions — no paid posts, no SEO links.
contact@buildmetric.orgWho We Serve
We do not pretend to cover the whole world. BuildMetric publishes specifically for the USA, UK and Australia — because those are the three regulatory environments our team knows intimately. Here is what that means in practice.
Region 01
Residential work follows IRC or IBC with state and municipal amendments. Our tools assume imperial units by default (metric available), and code references cite the current IRC edition alongside IBC where applicable.
Coverage: Full
Region 02
Governed by the Building Regulations (England & Wales), Scottish Building Standards and Northern Ireland equivalents, supported by British Standards such as BS 5534. Wind and rain exposure maps drive stricter requirements in the west and north.
Coverage: Full
Region 03
The National Construction Code (NCC) operates alongside Australian Standards — AS 1684 for timber framing, AS 4055 for wind classification. State-based variations apply, and cyclonic regions in the far north impose stricter fastening and pitch requirements.
Coverage: Full
Side-by-Side
| Dimension | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇬🇧 UK | 🇦🇺 AU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Units | Imperial | Metric | Metric |
| Pitch Expression | Rise / 12" | Degrees | Degrees |
| Governing Code | IRC / IBC | Building Regs | NCC |
| Timber Standard | NDS / IRC | BS 5268 / EC5 | AS 1684 |
| Wind Classification | ASCE 7 | BS EN 1991-1-4 | AS 4055 |
| Roofing Standard | IRC R905 | BS 5534 | AS 1562 / AS 2050 |
| Approval Process | AHJ / Inspector | Building Control | Building Surveyor |
This comparison is for orientation only. Always verify against the specific code edition and local amendments applicable to your site — see our Disclaimer.
It would be easy to claim "global coverage" and paste a flag emoji onto a comparison table. It would also be dishonest. We cover three markets because our team has worked extensively in all three — surveyed in the UK, framed in the US, and reviewed Australian code on project sites. If we added a fourth market tomorrow, we would have to either hire someone with genuine local expertise or accept a lower standard of accuracy. We are not willing to do either.
Users outside those three markets are still welcome to use our calculators — the underlying mathematics is universal. What we cannot do is provide regional code context, local approval guidance or jurisdiction-specific material recommendations. For that, you need a professional licensed where you are building.
Coverage at a Glance
Every tool is tested against reference cases in both imperial and metric, regardless of the primary market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Seven direct answers about who we are, how we fund the site, how we verify our calculators and how corrections are handled.
BuildMetric is independently owned and operated. It is not backed by a manufacturer, a supplier, a lead-generation network or a venture-capital fund. It is run by a small editorial and engineering team — quantity surveyors, structural engineers, licensed roofing contractors and technical editors — with combined field experience across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. The team writes, reviews, publishes and maintains every calculator and guide on the site.
Yes. Every calculator and written guide on buildmetric.org is free to use, with no paywall, no forced sign-up and no gated results. The site is funded through clearly marked display advertising and, on some product references, affiliate commissions. Advertising partners and affiliates have no influence over calculator formulas, editorial conclusions or rankings. There are no "premium" tiers, no trials and no hidden paywalls.
Every calculator is built from formulas that can be derived from first principles, and is tested against a set of known reference cases in both imperial and metric before publication. Each tool is reviewed by at least one practising professional — an engineer, quantity surveyor or licensed contractor — and periodically re-reviewed against current code editions including IRC 2021, BS 5534 and AS 1684. When a user reports an error, we reproduce the issue, test the fix and publish the change with a visible version number and update date.
Because our team has genuine field experience in those three markets — surveying in the UK, framing in the US and reviewing Australian code on project sites. The underlying mathematics is universal, so users anywhere can use our calculators. What we cannot honestly provide outside those three markets is regional code context, local approval guidance or jurisdiction-specific material recommendations. Rather than claim "global coverage" and deliver a lower standard, we have chosen to be explicit about the three markets we know and cover them properly.
No. We do not accept paid reviews, sponsored editorials, paid "guest posts" or SEO link-insertion offers. Advertisers can purchase display placements, but they cannot purchase editorial coverage, alter calculator formulas, influence rankings or preview drafts before publication. We occasionally accept non-paid guest contributions from practising professionals with verifiable credentials and field experience, and those are reviewed under the same standards as our own content. Any sponsorship or affiliate relationship is clearly disclosed on the page where it appears.
We occasionally accept guest contributions from practising professionals — engineers, surveyors, architects, licensed contractors — who can demonstrate verifiable credentials and relevant field experience. We do not accept paid placements, sponsored guest posts or SEO link-insertion offers, and we do not publish AI-generated content without a named human reviewer. If you believe your contribution meets our standards, email contact@buildmetric.org with your credentials, a short writing sample and a proposed topic. We respond to accepted pitches only.
Every valid correction is logged, tested and published with a visible version number and update date on the affected page. Reported issues are triaged within 48 hours and resolved within two business days, and we credit the reporter (with permission) in the page's update history. Over 250 user-reported fixes have been validated and published since launch in 2023. Corrections are how the library gets better — we would much rather be corrected than be quietly wrong.
Still curious?
Reach the team directly at contact@buildmetric.org — every message is read by a real person.