Homesteading Forum banner

Building Square For Dummies.

1K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  mreynolds 
#1 ·
I am no carpenter. I am also no mathematician so constructing a small structure that was square was a challenge. I devised this simple way of constructing square outbuildings. Say my building is going to be 16' x 12'. I first sink two posts or stakes in the ground. . I nail a 16 foor long board to the posts at ground level. . Now I have a straight horizontal board that represents one wall or the long side of a slab. Now I take a straight 12 foot 2 x 4 and screw a large metal tee square to it. I now have a 12 foot long tee square. I lay the short side against the end of the 16 foot long horizontal board I drive a stake at the end of the long leg of the square. Of course the width could be varied simply by measuring and marking the 2x4. I repeat the process at the other end of the horizontal 16 foot board and I have a 12 by 16 rectangle that has square corners staked out. . I have several outbuildings; a pump house , a two bay carport, a 16 by twenty storage shed, a 16 x20 hay barn and a green house. Most of the buildings are farm style post construction. The tack room and pump house have cement floors and are stick framed. . The smaller buildings have shed roofs. The car port and the green house have gable roofs. All except the green house have metal roofs. When attaching the siding the walls were within a 1/'2" inch of being square which is good enough for my little farm. . . .
 
#2 ·
Love the ingenuity Hossplay. Another way to find square is 16x16=256 12x12=144. Add the two together and square root the sum. 256 + 144= 400 Sq root of 400 is 20 feet. So the corner to corner measurement must 20 feet. Two tape measures are needed and the tapes will cross each other at the 10 foot mark on the tape....Of course minor adjustments are needed for the exact perimeter measurement....I thought it was cool this way however I use the Hossplay method on small buildings....Topside
 
#3 ·
Sneak ideas. Another idea is to keep in mind for a 90 degree square corner is that a right angle triangle has sides that are 3 and 4 and a hypotenuse of 5. And 6,8,10 is the next size up. So the thing to remover is 3,4,5 or any multiple of the numbers such as 3 x 3 = 9 on one side, 3 x 4 = 12 on one side and the angle side will be 3 x 5 = 15.

3,4,5 Feet ,inches, whatever.
 
#4 ·
I am no carpenter. I am also no mathematician
When attaching the siding the walls were within a 1/'2" inch of being square which is good enough for my little farm. . . .
Lol. Good work.
My dad was a carpenter. Those are my credentials.

I love building stuff and the odds of my building something true should be very good the next time around as I have never done it yet.

My neighbor just replaced a 12'x10' deck for his daughter. He hired a guy from the local halfway house to help him.
Now mind you, the deck attached to a plate right under the back door. No change in dimensions, just replacing the parts.
They dug extra wide holes so they had room to move the new posts around, lined them up, poured the concrete and went home.
They came back the next day and each of the posts were off by 6" or more. Redo.

My method is to go slow. Very slow. I don't measure twice; sometimes I'll measure 3 and 4 times.
That makes the difference between a building that "looks good from the street" to one I don't have to spend a morning with the sawzall trimming all the overhang and slop from.

I also rarely use help; they tend to stop and asks lots of questions, like how did I level this, or measure that, etc
 
#6 ·
The Pythagorean Theorem is a way to start. To then get a perfect square or rectangle, carefully measure from corner to corner each way. Only a true square or rectangle will have two diagonals that are equal.
 
#7 ·
All good answers so far but if you are building something not attached then just measure the diagonals. They should be equal. If they are not, the long side has to be moved toward the short side.

Off the subject but the building I am working on now is supposedly 90 degrees off. The builder was very particular about it being square but in his concentration he put it 90 degrees off. They say he died regretting this and now haunts the building. He was supposed to be very meticulous on being square. If I see his ghost I will ask him how he did it lol.
 
#8 ·
All good answers so far but if you are building something not attached then just measure the diagonals. They should be equal. If they are not, the long side has to be moved toward the short side.

Off the subject but the building I am working on now is supposedly 90 degrees off. The builder was very particular about it being square but in his concentration he put it 90 degrees off. They say he died regretting this and now haunts the building. He was supposed to be very meticulous on being square. If I see his ghost I will ask him how he did it lol.
90 degrees is a right angle-- not even I am THAT awful of a builder.
 
#12 ·
The building I was on was at the University. I think the builder thought the front was for the students but the architect wanted it for the main street.

I can't believe back then the architect didn't catch it soon enough so it was really on him too.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top