Know what it costs before you start.
Home repair guides with the numbers in them — what materials run, how long jobs actually take, and the mistakes that make people pay twice. Plus free calculators that tell you exactly how much to buy.
- 102 guides
- 5 free calculators
- 9 topics
Free tools
Work out what to buy
No sign-up, no email, nothing saved. Each one shows its sources and its method at the bottom, so you can check the numbers rather than trust them.
Insulation R-value
Your climate zone’s DOE target, plus depth and cost for five materials.
Paint quantity
Gallons for walls, ceiling, trim and primer — at realistic spread rates.
Flooring boxes
How many cartons to order once waste and layout are accounted for.
Deck materials
Boards, joists, hangers and screws from your deck’s dimensions.
Board feet
Hardwood volume and cost, with the quarter-inch thickness trap explained.
All five, side by side
What each one takes in, and what it hands back.
Guides
Start with the job in front of you
Every guide sits in one of these. The number is how many are in there right now.
Longer reads
The jobs worth reading about first
The bigger write-ups — the ones with the full sequence, the costs, and the parts that went wrong.
My First Baseboard Install Was a Disaster — Here’s Everything I Know Now
Coped joints, out-of-square corners, and the gap that only shows up after the paint dries.
How to Install Low-Voltage Landscape Lighting
Transformer sizing, cable runs, voltage drop and fixture aiming — a whole front garden in one afternoon.
My Heating Bill Was $400 a Month Until I Climbed Into the Attic
What air sealing before insulating actually changed on the next bill.
I Replaced My First Toilet Because the Old One Was Pink
Rough-in measurement, wax ring versus foam seal, and the closet bolts that always seize.
I Painted My Living Room Twice Before I Learned What Back-Rolling Even Was
Why the roller has to follow the sprayer, and what happens to the finish when it does not.
The Drill That Almost Went Through My Hand: Choosing a Cordless Drill
Chuck size, torque, brushless motors, and the clutch setting that stops a drill twisting out of your hand.
What this site is
HomeFix Pro covers home repair and improvement — flooring, plumbing, electrical, walls and ceilings, insulation, windows and doors, and the tools that go with them. Guides are published under the byline Marcus Hale.
Where we give a number, we say where it came from. The insulation targets in our calculator are the Department of Energy’s published recommendations, not our estimates. Where a figure is our own estimate — material costs, mostly — it is labelled as one and the range is deliberately wide.
Where a job is a code matter or a safety matter, we say so and point at the actual authority rather than guessing. Deck spans, gas work and anything inside a service panel belong to your building department and a licensed trade, and we will tell you that instead of giving you a number that looks helpful.
More about the site →