How to Know if Something Is Square and Why It’s So Important in Construction
Do you know how to determine whether something is square, and why it’s so important to building fundamentals in Poulsbo, WA? As you can imagine, knowing if something is square (and how to check for it) is important to construction—if your measurements are off even a little bit, it can throw off the entire rest of the house, office or other building. Obviously, you don’t want that to happen!
If you are an avid DIY-er, it’s important to understand how to check square with a tape measure in Poulsbo, WA. Here’s how to do it, and why you need to take this into account when you’re working on your own projects.
Why check for square?
Even Pythagoras knew the importance of checking for square, thousands of years ago. That doesn’t mean the walls of your home have to be perfectly square in shape, but they do need to be rectangular. That is, the walls have to come together at a precise right angle. In his own words, “the sum of the squares of two sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the third side, or hypotenuse.”
If you’re not great with math, don’t worry. The important part is that you do it (or let an expert take over) so the floor joists, subfloor, walls and more will all line up properly. Otherwise, you’ll get a wonky-looking building that doesn’t hold up well over time.
How to check for square in your own projects
If you’re looking for square for your own projects, there is at least one good way to do it. Look at one corner of the assembly, and determine whether that’s a right angle. Then measure one edge of that right angle to get the length. Use your handy phone calculator to multiply the length times itself, and write that down or save it.
Now do the same thing for an edge on the assembly, and square the value with the help of your calculator. Now that you have this information, your calculation is half complete.
Finally, measure the hypotenuse. That’s the diagonal long end of the open edge to the open end of the wide edge. If you square this, it should come to the same number as the sum of the two squared sides—if it’s actually squared!
If all of this seems like a lot of math, well, that’s why one hires contractors instead of trying to build their own home. Not only do contractors know how to check for square, but they’re also skilled at determining whether a building is level and plumb. This is another highly technical way to ensure that your home or office is well made and can stand the test of time.
If you want to hire a contractor who knows the building fundamentals in Poulsbo, WA, reach out to the team at Coyote Hollow Construction today. Our experts can provide a number of different home construction and renovation services. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Categorised in: Home Building