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Measurements, waste factors and conversions.

Despite EU regulations the building and timber trades continue to use a combination of imperial and metric measurements. This can be a little confusing, but worse, it can lead to some drastic calculation errors.

To make life simple try to use one or the other and stick to it.

For imperial we use inches (“), feet (‘), cubic feet (ft3) and square feet (ft2).

For metric we use millimetres (mm), metres (mt), cubic metres (m3) and square metres (m2). The timber trade does not tend to use centimetres.

Wood is sold in variety of ways:

• Rough sawn wood is normally sold by the cubic volume (ft3 or m3).
• Machined sections are normally sold by the running length (ft or mt).
• Flooring and some cladding is normally sold by the square area (ft2 or m2).

To calculate specifications between imperial and metric the table below can help with these convertions.

EXACT CONVERSIONS	MULTIPLY BY
Feet to metres	x by 3.281
Cubic feet to cubic metres	x by 35.315
Square feet to square metres	x by 10.76

UNIT CONVERSION

For online unit calculations the following link could be helpful; Unit coverter.

CURRENCY CONVERSION

For online currency calculations the following link could be helpful; Currency coverter.