315 answers across 63 tools: what each calculator decides, what it deliberately leaves out, and how to check the numbers it gives you.
Painting, tiling and finishes
Paint calculator: how much paint and primer: Turns room measurements into the paint a repaint actually consumes, coat by coat. A paint estimate answers one question with a number: how many tins do I buy?
POP ceiling calculator: cost and materials: A POP ceiling is priced by three things that are easy to confuse: the board area that covers the room, the framing that holds it, and the compound that
Screeding Calculator: Turns a floor area and a screed thickness into sand, cement and the bags behind them. A screed estimate is a volume calculation wearing an area costume.
Drywall and Stud Partitioning: A drywall takeoff is a wall measured twice: once as a face area for board, once as a length for framing.
Flooring Materials Estimator: Flooring is the one finish bought in packs with a published coverage, which makes the arithmetic simple and the ordering easy to get wrong.
Plastering and Rendering: Cement and sand for plaster and render, by area and by the thickness you build. Plastering is a thickness business wearing an area costume.
Waterproofing Materials: DPC, membrane, coatings and tape for the areas you actually identify. Waterproofing is bought by area, by coat and by detail.
Painting Estimator: Room by room painting quantities from real product data, with warnings instead of hidden percentages. The paint calculator answers how much paint a room
Insulation Takeoff: Insulation is bought in packs covering a stated area at a stated thickness, which makes the order simple and the layers the tricky part.
Paint Comparison: Paint is sold in tins of different sizes at different prices with different coverage, which makes the shelf price a poor guide to the cost of a wall.
Finish Comparison: Paint, screed, tile and POP priced from one wall area so a client can choose. Two finishes can cover the same wall and cost very different amounts over their
Decorative Concrete Flooring: Decorative concrete flooring is a topping, not a slab, and the distinction decides the whole estimate.
Wall Finish Estimator: Screed, skim and texture quantities from the wall areas you identify, at the thickness you set. A wall finish is a thickness applied to an area, and the
Foundation, roof and structure
Foundation Calculator: The materials a footing consumes: concrete ingredients, blockwork and formwork, from your own dimensions. A foundation estimate comes down to three
Build to roof: cost from foundation up: One pass from substructure to roof covering, so the shell is priced as a single job. Building to roof is the stage where money runs out quietly.
Retaining Wall Calculator: A retaining wall holds back soil, and the forces on it come from the ground rather than from the wall.
Soffit, Fascia and Gutter Estimator: Rainwater goods are ordered by the metre and by the fitting, and both come from the roof edge rather than from the roof area.
Steel I-Beam Calculator: Span to tonnage, because steel is bought and quoted by mass, not by length. A steel beam is bought by weight, so the calculation is a section multiplied by a
Doors and Windows Estimator: Doors and windows are counted, not measured, which makes this the simplest estimate in the catalogue and the one most often got wrong.
Masonry, Brickwork and Blockwork: Masonry is where construction estimating starts, and it is still the discipline most often done by rule of thumb.
Rebar calculator: bar length and weight: Reinforcement is measured in weight, and weight comes from three facts about each bar: its diameter, how many there are and how long each one is.
Concrete and rebar takeoff: volumes and bars: Concrete volumes and reinforcement quantities for the structural elements you survey. A structural takeoff is a schedule, not a design.
Concrete Slab Takeoff: A slab takeoff is a volume with a waste allowance and a mix, and the arithmetic is trivial until the thickness matters.
Earthworks Cut and Fill: Cut and fill is the discipline of moving soil from where there is too much to where there is too little.
Roof Framing and Board Feet: Rafters, purlins and board feet from the span, pitch and spacing you set. A roof is measured on its slope, and its slope is longer than its plan.
Formwork and Temporary Works: Temporary works are bought by area, not by volume, because formwork and falsework are surfaces and supports rather than substances.
Foundation Designer: A footing size is the product of a load and a ground condition, and both have to come from somewhere.
Electrical and plumbing
Electrical Estimator: A wiring material take off that refuses to size a cable category you have not measured. An electrical estimate is a count and a length.
Conduit and Wiring Estimator: Conduit is the one electrical material that is bought almost entirely by length, and its length is decided by the route rather than by the number of rooms.
Plumbing Estimator: Fixture counts and measured pipe runs turned into pipes, fittings and valves. A plumbing estimate follows the pipe.
Septic and Soakaway Worksheet: A septic tank is sized by the volume of sewage it receives and the time the sewage needs to settle, and both of those come from occupancy and flow rather
Solar PV Estimator: Panels, inverter and mounting from either the roof area you have or the energy you need. A solar estimate is a list of components at the quantities a design
Backup Power and Generator: Materials around a generator you have sized, with the cable run measured, not guessed. A backup power takeoff covers the equipment and the connections, not
Heat and Comfort: Two roofs of identical construction can behave differently in the sun, and the difference is usually the surface.
Groundwork and site clearance
Demolition and Debris Takeoff: Turns a strip out into a debris volume and a skip count, element by element. Demolition is priced by what leaves the site.
Drainage Materials Takeoff: A drainage takeoff counts pipe, chambers and bedding, and it does all three from a route rather than from a property.
Paving and Block Paving: Pavers, bedding sand and subbase from the area, the pattern and the depths you set. Paving is a surface over a structure, and both are bought by different
Global Site Safety & PPE Estimator: Safety quantities on a construction site are usually bought against habit: a box of gloves for the gang, signs along the hoarding, an extinguisher by the
Programme, labour and cash flow
Labour and Crew Productivity: Labour is the largest line in most construction estimates and the one most often carried as a percentage.
Margin and Markup Calculator: Margin and markup are different numbers computed from different bases, and confusing them is the most common way a profitable job is priced at a loss.
Cash-Flow Timeline: A job is paid for over its life, and its costs are paid out over the same life at a different rhythm.
Project Timeline: A programme is a set of operations with durations and relationships, and the useful part is not the bar chart but the relationships between them.
Construction Sequence: The order trades follow, with the hold points that stop work being covered too early. A sequence is the order in which work has to happen, and most of it is
Maintenance Planner: A building starts to need work the day it is finished, and the cost of that work is predictable in aggregate even when it is unpredictable in detail.
Costing and commercial control
BOQ and Quote Generator: A bill of quantities is a list of measured work with descriptions, units and rates, and its value is that every line can be traced.
Embodied Carbon Estimator: Embodied carbon is the emissions that come with making and moving a material, before the building is used at all.
Demolition Recovery: Demolition produces material that is either recovered or lost, and the difference between those outcomes is decided before the building comes down.
Warranty Certificate: A warranty certificate records what was built, by whom, with which materials, and it does so at a moment when all of that is still known.
Contractor Credit Check: A credit score is an inference about whether someone will pay, and any honest version of it has to say what it is built from.
Measurement Converter: Construction is measured in two systems at once, and the failures happen at the boundaries: a supplier quoting in imperial sections for a building drawn in
Blueprint and Plan Takeoff: Reading a plan for quantities is a human skill that software assists rather than replaces.
Live Material Price Index: Material prices move, and an estimate that uses last quarter's figure without saying so is an estimate that will be wrong in a way nobody can see.
International Code Reference: A construction code is a legal document that changes by jurisdiction, and a calculator that assumed one would be wrong almost everywhere.
Climate Material Advisor: Choosing a material is a set of trade offs: exposure, maintenance, availability, cost and how it behaves over time.
Regional Cost Index: The same building costs different amounts in two cities, and the difference is not the design.
Defect Diagnosis: Symptoms mapped to likely causes, with the check that tells them apart. A defect is a symptom, and the symptom is rarely where the cause is.
BIM and IFC Import: An IFC file is a model exchanged between authoring tools, and it carries geometry, properties and a classification.
Field Sync: Measurements taken on site and estimates held in the office are the same numbers at different moments, and this is the mechanism that brings them together.
Material Prices: Recorded material prices by market, each with a date and a source. Every estimate eventually rests on a price, and this page is where those prices live.
Quotes and client estimates
Quote Pipeline: Where each quote stands, what came back, and which ones have gone quiet. A quote is not a number, it is a state.
Client Estimate and Quote Engine: The quote engine itself: costs in, markup applied once, and a record the client answers. A client estimate is where a calculation becomes an offer.
Using FRELUX
Using FRELUX: FRELUX is a set of construction calculators that measure materials, a quote layer that turns those measurements into an offer, and a property intelligence