Tools and floorplan
Calculators, wall builders and the floorplan creator: work out quantities, draw your home and save the results to a project.
The tools work out how much you need to buy and draw your home to scale. They're at Tools, open to anyone, with or without an account. Signed in, Tools is in the main navigation (the bottom bar on a phone).
What's there#
The tools page groups them like this:
- Planning: the floorplan creator, the radiator and BTU calculator and the air-con calculator
- Decorating: paint, wallpaper, and skirting and coving
- Flooring and tiling: flooring, tiles, and grout and adhesive
- Walls: the stud wall builder and the brick and block wall builder
- Building materials: concrete and screed, and insulation
- Outdoors: paving, and gravel and topsoil
- Conversions: a unit converter for metric and imperial
Every calculator shows its working, in metric or imperial, with UK, French or Spanish shop sizes. The results are estimates: check them against your own measurements and the product's label before you buy.
Calculations we leave to professionals#
Electrical loads and cable sizes, beams and lintels, foundations, and gas pipes, boilers and flues have guidance pages instead of calculators. They explain what the work involves and who to ask, with no figures.
Saving to a project#
Signed in, you can save a calculation to a task in your project, open it again later, re-run it as a new version and turn it into the task's materials list. A project's floorplan is saved on its Floorplan tab, and its rooms can be linked to the project's rooms.
What each plan gets#
- Every plan, and without an account: all the tools in full, and the floorplan creator for drawing, measuring, the 3D view and the PNG image, kept in your browser
- Every plan: saving results from the simple calculators to a project
- Premium and Professional: saving the stud wall builder, brick and block wall builder, radiator and air-con results, making their materials lists, and their PDFs; saving a floorplan to a project, with versions, and the floorplan PDF
These are the current defaults. See Pricing for the up-to-date list.
How-to guides
- Use a calculatorFind the right calculator, set the units and shop sizes, and read the result and its working.
- Save a calculation to a projectKeep a calculation on a task, re-run it as a new version and turn it into the task's materials list.
- Plan a stud or brick wallUse the wall builders to list the frame, boards, bricks, blocks and mortar for a wall, with drawings and a cut list.
- Draw a floorplanDraw rooms, shape and size their walls, and add doors, windows and openings in the floorplan creator.
- Work with several floorsAdd floors above or below, copy a floor's outline, change their order and see the next floor faintly while you draw.
- Save a floorplan to your projectKeep a floorplan with a project, link its rooms to the project's rooms and save new versions.
- Export floorplans and tool resultsDownload a floorplan as an image or PDF, and the wall builders' cutting list and course plan as PDFs.
Questions
Do I need an account to use the tools?
No. Every calculator, both wall builders and the floorplan creator are free to use at Tools without an account. An account lets you save results to a project, and Premium adds the PDFs and saving the advanced tools.
Why is there no calculator for beams, cables, foundations or gas?
Those sums decide whether a building stays up or a home stays safe, and the answer depends on things only a professional can check on site. For electrical loads and cable sizes, beams and lintels, foundations, and gas pipes, boilers and flues, the tools page has guidance on what the work involves and who to ask, with no figures.
Which tools need Premium?
None, to use. Anyone can use every tool in full. Premium and Professional add saving the stud wall builder, brick and block wall builder, radiator and air-con results, the cutting-list, course-plan and floorplan PDFs, and saving a floorplan to a project. Saving the simple calculators' results works on every plan. See Pricing.
Can I use French or Spanish product sizes?
Yes. Use Shop sizes on the calculator to switch between United Kingdom, France and Spain. It sets the pack, roll, board, brick and door sizes the tool starts from, and every value can still be changed.
Can I draw angled or curved walls?
Walls at 45°, yes. Select a square corner and use Cut corner at 45°, for a splayed bay or a chimney breast across a corner, or draw a Partition with a part at 45° across a room. Other angles and curved walls aren't supported. You can make L and T shapes by adding corners to a wall and dragging it.
Can a project have more than one floorplan?
No, one per project, with as many floors as the building has. Saving another plan to a project that has one makes it the next version, and the earlier versions stay in its history.
If I delete a wall on the floorplan, does that mean I can take it out?
No. The floorplan is a drawing and its measurements, nothing more. Whether a wall can come out depends on what it holds up, which is a question for a structural engineer. See the structural guidance on Tools.
What happens to my saved floorplan and wall calculations if I downgrade?
They stay. You can still view them and download their PDFs, but changing them, re-running them or updating their materials needs Premium again. See Export floorplans and tool results.
Related
- Time and materialsLog the hours spent on each task, keep a materials list per task, and tick items off on the shopping list in the shop, even offline.
- Projects and roomsCreate and set up projects, organise them into rooms, and archive, delete or hand over a project you no longer need.
- Plans and billingWhat Free, Premium and Professional include, what they cost, and how to upgrade, change plan, cancel and find your invoices.