Utilizing Deck Calculators For Project Planning Accuracy

Decks are a great way for home­own­ers to expand the usable square footage of their homes and get the ben­e­fits of indoor/​outdoor liv­ing. How­ev­er, when you’re work­ing with a home­own­er to plan a deck project, you need to effec­tive­ly cal­cu­late the mate­ri­als you’ll need to cre­ate the kind of deck that the home­own­er wants.

Accu­rate plan­ning is essen­tial to man­ag­ing the home­own­er’s expec­ta­tions and keep­ing the mate­r­i­al cost with­in the bud­get set for the project. As a pro­fes­sion­al, the home­own­er or build­ing own­er will look to you to deter­mine how much deck­ing and oth­er mate­ri­als will be need­ed and what a real­is­tic bud­get is.

Benefits of Using a Deck Calculator

Using a deck cal­cu­la­tor is the best way to ensure that your mate­r­i­al cal­cu­la­tions are cor­rect. The ben­e­fits of cal­cu­lat­ing your mate­r­i­al costs ahead of time can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the over­all job’s success.

Time Savings

Cal­cu­lat­ing your deck mate­r­i­al needs in advance is an obvi­ous time-saver. If you don’t order enough deck­ing mate­r­i­al, fas­ten­ers and equip­ment at the begin­ning of the project, you could face hefty delays lat­er on. Order­ing in small batch­es means wait­ing for sup­pli­ers to ship and mate­ri­als to arrive. 

If you cor­rect­ly esti­mate the amount of mate­r­i­al the job calls for at the begin­ning, you can place one large order that will be shipped all at once. This leads to few­er delays, no dis­ap­point­ed or annoyed home­own­ers and no extra ship­ping and mate­r­i­al costs.

Cost Estimation

When you’re cre­at­ing a quote for a home­own­er, you need to include an accu­rate cost for mate­ri­als so that the cus­tomer has a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of the project’s budget. 

You also need to esti­mate the total cost of mate­ri­als so you can deter­mine what your prof­it will be. If your cost esti­mate isn’t accu­rate, you risk los­ing mon­ey and dis­ap­point­ing the client. 

Reducing Material Waste

Every deck­ing job is dif­fer­ent, so if you don’t cal­cu­late deck­ing mate­r­i­al cor­rect­ly, you could have an abun­dance of wast­ed mate­r­i­al that can’t be used for oth­er projects.

Accu­rate­ly cal­cu­lat­ing the deck mate­r­i­al amount need­ed for each job will reduce mate­r­i­al waste, lead­ing to low­er mate­r­i­al costs.

Step-By-Step Guide To Using a Deck Calculator

Using a deck cal­cu­la­tor is the best way to esti­mate how much deck­ing you need for a par­tic­u­lar job. The good news is that you don’t need a fan­cy cal­cu­la­tor to do this. Lowe’s, Home Depot and Mr. Handy­man have easy-to-use cal­cu­la­tors you can access for free when you’re ready to start your project. 

Inputting Measurements

The mea­sure­ments you put into a deck cal­cu­la­tor need to be accu­rate if you want to get a pre­cise cal­cu­la­tion. The deck shape will also play a role in your cal­cu­la­tions to esti­mate how much deck­ing mate­r­i­al you need.

Length, Width and Height

To deter­mine the length, mea­sure along the longest side of the deck. If the deck will be square, you can mea­sure any side.

The width is deter­mined by mea­sur­ing the hor­i­zon­tal dis­tance per­pen­dic­u­lar to the length. If the deck is odd­ly shaped, you may have to take sev­er­al mea­sure­ments for an accu­rate estimate.

The height is the ver­ti­cal mea­sure­ment from the ground to the top of the deck sur­face. To accu­rate­ly esti­mate the height of the deck, mea­sure the dis­tance from the ground to the sur­face of the deck, not the rail­ing height. 

This is also some­times called the deck­’s ​“rise.” Even a ground-lev­el deck will have a height mea­sure­ment, but it will be a small number.

Deck Shape Considerations

Most decks are square or rec­tan­gu­lar. How­ev­er, if the project involves a cir­cu­lar or L‑shaped deck, you may need to divide the area into square and rec­tan­gu­lar shapes and cal­cu­late the area of the deck to get accu­rate measurements.

If the deck has mul­ti­ple lev­els, include stair rise and tread mea­sure­ments so that you can cal­cu­late all deck­ing, fas­ten­ers and oth­er mate­ri­als need­ed to com­plete the job.

Estimating Material Costs

Once you have accu­rate mea­sure­ments, you can esti­mate the mate­r­i­al costs for the deck. The cost of the mate­ri­als depends large­ly on the mate­r­i­al type and the price vari­abil­i­ty in the market.

Types of Materials

Home­own­ers can choose from a wide vari­ety of deck­ing mate­ri­als, from PVC to com­pos­ite to pres­sure-treat­ed wood. Talk­ing to the home­own­er about their bud­get, the local cli­mate and the ben­e­fits of dif­fer­ent deck­ing prod­ucts can help them choose a mate­r­i­al that will fit their needs and aes­thet­ic preferences. 

Price Variability

When you quote the mate­r­i­al cost for a deck, talk to a pro­fes­sion­al about the mar­ket costs at that time to find a rea­son­able price range. That way, the quote you give the home­own­er will include any cost adjust­ment that hap­pens before you order the deck­ing materials.

Adjusting for Waste

Every deck­ing job will have some per­cent­age of mate­r­i­al waste — for most types of deck­ing, it is advised that you plan on a waste fac­tor of 10% to 15%. 

When cal­cu­lat­ing your mate­r­i­al needs, you should always plan on over­age to ensure you have enough mate­r­i­al to fin­ish the job — while that means you will like­ly end up with some waste, you do not want to place anoth­er order lat­er on and pro­long the project’s timeline. 

If you wait to order more mate­ri­als, you may run into issues like lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty or sig­nif­i­cant price increas­es due to mar­ket con­di­tions. Order­ing extra at the ini­tial buy­ing stage is a wise deci­sion to ensure your project doesn’t run into cost­ly obsta­cles down the road. 

Common Mistakes To Avoid

When cal­cu­lat­ing deck­ing mate­r­i­al for a project, you can pre­vent cost­ly delays and keep the job mov­ing smooth­ly by avoid­ing these two mis­takes: over­look­ing local build­ing codes and inac­cu­rate measurements.

Overlooking Local Building Codes

Decks are gov­erned by local build­ing codes as a struc­tur­al ele­ment of the home. Any planned decks must meet local build­ing codes and may require per­mits for instal­la­tion. 

Even if you are adding to or upgrad­ing an exist­ing deck that is falling apart, you must check with the local munic­i­pal­i­ty to ensure the deck project meets all local build­ing codes. You should also apply for per­mits before begin­ning work.

Inaccurate Measurements

The biggest mis­take pro­fes­sion­als make when start­ing a deck project is not tak­ing accu­rate mea­sure­ments. Inac­cu­rate mea­sure­ments will cost you mon­ey, time and pos­si­bly repeat busi­ness if the home­own­er isn’t hap­py with their experience. 

Get the Help You Need To Get Every Deck Right

Fas­ten­Mas­ter has a wide range of deck mate­ri­als and fas­ten­ers that will give you the mate­ri­als you need to com­plete beau­ti­ful, strong decks. 

Whether you’re design­ing and build­ing a new deck or upgrad­ing an exist­ing one, our Deck­ing Col­or Match Tool will help you find the right prod­ucts for the job.

Ready to take the next step toward build­ing bet­ter decks? Dis­cov­er Fas­ten­Mas­ter prod­ucts near you.