Do a Job · Everyday · 6 min
Work out how many lengths to order
Turn a measured run into whole stock lengths, with laps or butt straps, rounded up the way a site orders.
Flashings and trims come in stock lengths, usually 3 m. Ten metres isn’t three and a bit lengths, it’s four, and a lap or a butt strap changes the count again. Work out… does that arithmetic for you and shows its working.
Set it up
- Measure the runs into a group, one group per flashing, with a reference such as F101.
- Go to the Take-off page, click the group's row to open it, and choose Work out….
- Under Lengths to order, type the stock length in metres.
- Choose how the lengths are joined: No laps or straps, Lapped (and the lap in millimetres) or Butt straps.
- Choose Round up: Each drawing, then added (how a site orders, run by run) or Whole group, once.
- Choose Save. The group now shows how many to order.
Laps, straps and rounding
- Lapped. Each piece covers the stock length less the lap. The cautious rule takes the lap off every piece; the between pieces rule only takes it off where two pieces meet. Both are offered, and the working says what the other would give.
- Butt straps. One strap fewer than there are pieces in each run. Laps and straps are alternatives, never both.
- Each drawing, then added. Each drawing's run is rounded up on its own, as it’s delivered and cut for its place. This can only ever give more than rounding once.
Each run its own way
As on the estimator's sheet, where every row has its own Laps? and B/S?, each drawing's run can be jointed differently from the flashing: lapped on the roof, strapped on the wall. In the flashing's To order block choose a run's Joints; Same as the flashing is the default and stores nothing. This applies where each drawing is rounded on its own. A flashing rounded once is a single run.
A run that wasn’t measured
A length from a schedule, or a late change, can be typed in under Add a run that wasn’t measured. It’s rounded up on its own, listed as typed, added to the order, and never counted as measured.
Other things in the same window
Work out… also has Sealant or mastic (bead size and pack volume) and Price (a unit rate you type, per metre, area or each). The price is simple arithmetic on the adjusted total: it doesn’t know or look up any prices.