The WoW Style

Blog For Ultimate Style Collection

5 Ways Home Builders Use Math

Mathematics has found its way to a variety of applications. Whether you hate math or not, you cannot deny how math makes life more meaningful. Your daily activity involves mathematics in some form or another. Regardless of your career, mathematics is a necessity. 

Whether the project is a new home development or a home renovation, a house builder is involved in all phases of residential construction. Homebuilders perform managerial duties such as organizing personnel, coordinating projects, and ensuring safety. Aside from these supervisory duties, home builders work with laborers to build foundations, frame walls, flooring, and roofing. 

Homebuilders who think they have ditched mathematics entirely are indeed mistaken. Building structures such as houses requires the application of mathematical principles. Managing and supervising projects also use math. To understand a variety of mathematical applications, browse through articles by percentages.io

If you are a home builder and need math help, here are some ways you can utilize your math skills:

Building Structures  

In framing houses, putting sheathing and subfloors, laying foundations, and installing roofs, you will be dealing with shapes and sizes. Moreover, as a home builder, you are will be doing work such as flooring, trim work, and door and window installation. You want the measurement to be exact and make all the pieces fit together, right? Do you need the right angle for your roofing? 

All these physical jobs need some basic understanding of geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. These branches of mathematics empower you to measure dimensions and compute ratios, volume, area, and angles.

Probably, you have been building these structures based on experience alone. While there’s nothing wrong with that, why not try mathematics to make your work more accurate?

Woman holding house model in hand and calculating financial chart for investment to buying property.

Managing Budget 

Homebuilders determine manpower, generate project budgets, secure appropriate permissions, coordinate logistics, and alter schedules as needed. Construction schedules might change often due to a variety of factors ranging from severe weather to late supplies.  As a home builder, it’s your job to hit deadlines and compute the cost of the materials.

These tasks need the application of addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions, and decimals. You need to have the arithmetic skills to compute if the cost is still within your budget. Applying percentage helps present your completion target and in computing for the price discount.

Taking Measurements 

Taking measurements is an essential skill in home construction. You must be able to convert between different units of measurement, which necessitates the use of dimensional analysis. For example, if you are to convert meters to feet, you must divide the quantity in meters by 3.28 to get an equal number of feet. 

Aside from unit conversion, home builders use the ratio as well. You must be able to divide the length by the height to acquire the right ratio when calculating the proportion of the roof’s length to its height. Using ratios can create beautiful symmetry for your building structures.

Complying With Tolerance And Error Requirements 

In constructing houses, industry standards permit deviation from stated or planned values. Such a standard protects the owner’s right of receiving quality workmanship.  Meanwhile, by having an acceptable deviation from the stipulated project values or measurements, the contractor is also protected. 

Tolerance and error requirements are often given in percentages. For example, in mixing cement, the concentration must fall within a tolerance of 1%. This indicates that the actual cement content of the delivered mix will not vary by more than 1% of the stipulated value by volume. The mistake is the discrepancy between the actual and required contents. 

Dealing With Electricity 

Electricity is an indispensable part of homebuilding. While professional electricians are the right people to handle electrical works, basic electrical wiring, and installation such as replacing light bulbs are necessary skills. You must constantly be aware of the possible hazards when working directly with electricity. That’s why you must be equipped with the fundamental electrical knowledge required to properly execute duties to avoid any accidents. 

Electrical quantities involve mathematical computation. For instance, in computing for power, you can simply multiply voltage and current. Knowing how related these quantities are can help you understand how energy-saving works.

Facing Difficulties

Though math is a complex discipline, you will have to deal with it eventually. Math is an essential part of your career.  At some point in your life, you will have to apply math to evaluate or finish your work.

If you want to be a successful home builder, you have to enhance your math skills to optimize your potential. You may not like it right now, but you will surely value what it can accomplish for you! Since you can’t keep away from math forever, get a hold of it and grasp some fundamental math ideas. Create the home-building profession of your dreams.