Yes,
that’s right. With the help of ingenious
application developers, now the iPhone or iTouch will be as invaluable as your tape
measure. In fact, they have an app for
that! With thousands of applications
available to iPhone and iTouch, these are just a few of the Home Improvement
Tool Apps that will make you wonder how you ever did without.
Dimensions
by pocketDEMO $1.99
Well
worth the money, Dimensions utility offers 13, 3d graphics measuring tools. Included, is a caliper with a precision of
0.156mm or 0.004 inches, a ruler, a level that will not only measure vertical
and horizontal, but any angles as well, a tape measure up to 2.5 meters or 8 feet
which works by sliding the iPhone under your finger, another tape measure for
room sizes up to 16 feet, a long tape measure which uses the camera of your iPhone
to measure distances up to 82 feet, a measuring wheel for distances over 80ft
up to a mile, a gps based pedometer , and other goodies such as a speedometer,
an app to measure ingredients that do not appear on your measuring glass and a
converter calculator that converts measurements of distance, volume, surface
and speed. Definitely, a very handy
application to have.
HandyMan
Sidekick byTech Tree Media $1.99
Calculate yards to feet and vice versa,
calculate mulch from square feet to cubic feet, converts meters to feet,
centimeters to inches, lets you choose between metric or imperial units. The Paint calculator finds how much paint to
use and even takes into account the number of windows and doors you have! There is also a Wallpaper app that will tell
you how much material will be needed. Also,
included is a flooring calculator for hardwood, laminate, etc. The Garden app will calculate how much mulch
you will need. This is a great tool to
figure out how much material you might use and be able to convert to the proper
measuring units.
Home
Improvement Calculator by PunkStar Studios
$4.99
The
Home Improvement Calculator is a handy tool for any homeowner. This application calculates just about any
material you might need in a typical home improvement project. Calculate
for paint, wallpaper, tile, deck, fence, concrete, gravel, mulch, brick, and
carpet. Just enter in the dimensions and
the program will calculate how much material you will need to complete the job. This will save you a lot of time, money and
trips to the store!
FIS
Dimensional Calculator $9.99
How
many times have you ruined building materials due to simple
miscalculations? Well, that is a thing
of the past. Put your iPhone or iTouch
in your tool belt and load the FIS Dimensional Calculator. Add,
subtract, multiply and divide dimensions in feet, inches and fractions of an
inch. Save time with the added numbers
on the calculator. With the innovative
addition of a “0-15” key and dedicated
/2, /4, /8, /16 keys, inputting
is fast and easy. Now, you will never
have an excuse to miscalculate dimensions, again!
Right
Angles Calculator by Touch Me Apps $9.99
Enter
any two sides, or just an angle and one side and Right Angles calculates the
other data which can be entered in as feet, inches and fractions with the
unique interface. Calculate sides,
angle, area, tangent or pitch of a triangle
A nice compliment to the FIS Dimensional Calculator.
If
you are a Home Building Professional or an advance DIYer, than you will find
the following applications very intriguing.
Builder’s
Formulator from Multieducator inc. $9.99
This
program contains over 200 formulas helpful for builders. Combines
formulas from electrical, carpentry and plumbing formulations. Concrete and excavations formulas for
excavating or filing soil. Concrete required
for a job and the bricks for a wall. Carpentry
section, calculates the number of joists and studs required on a job. Builder’s formulator aids users to calculate
the load on headers or the cost of hardwood flooring. Electrical section calculates kilowatts,
horsepower efficiency, power factor, watts, amps, current power, resistance and
voltage. Also calculates total
resistance, capacitance, voltage drops and transformer calculations. Plumbing, calculates areas of pipe walls and
weights of different pipes. Builder’s
formulator can even calculate the final
temperature when two bodies of water are mixed.
It will also calculate expansion of pipes, radiant heat and heat loss
cooling requirements and fresh air in a room requirements. In the Financial section, Builder’s
Formulator can calculate mortgages and price quotes. All formulas can be saved and accessed at a
later time. Results can also be emailed
right from your iPhone or iTouch.
Multieducator,
in addition to Builder’s Formulator, has specialized programs for Carpenters, Architects,
Building Engineers, Electricians and Plumbers.
Cad
Touch R2 by neoDev $6.99
Draw
floorplans or land surfaces (calculate their area), facades, mechanical or
structural parts (calculate their inertia), diagrams and field notes with this
innovative CAD product for the iPhone or iTouch. After you are finished, you can email the
file in real-time! This program is so
advanced, it can handle big drawings and offers powerful editable and multiple
polylines.
Features
include:
- Measure Units (meters, feet, cm, mm)
- Multiple, editable (delete, move, copy) polylines drawing with multitouch
support (ideal to draw measures of any
kind of constructions).
- Continuous walls
- Snap
- Hardware accelerated,colorable on-screen sketches with undo.. Ideal for
annotations, revisioning and why not, to paint your work.
- Full screen support, very handy when you have to show and save your work.
- Query tool with selectable vertices (distance, area, moment of inertia,
centroid, bending moment and more). You can use cadTouch to pre-estimate the
flexional resistance of a beam.
- Save your drawing and then send it via email to your office (imagine the time
your will save sending your survey to your office as soon as you finish
measuring).
- Fast and more precise drawing (almost completely hardware-accelerated)
Don’t
forget the most important utility a homeowner should have in their toolbox is
Showroom411.com’s ASK RICK, where you
can find professional contractor advice.
Ask him any home improvement question and you will receive an answer
from him personally.