About Tools for Builders
Tools for Builders started with PondTools, a pond design program built by someone who got tired of guessing at liner sizes, pump flow and rock tonnage. The rules of thumb were close enough to sound right and far enough off to cost a day on site.
Contractors started using PondTools to quote real jobs. Then they started asking for the same thing for the other work they bid on: the roof they were subbing on, the pool going in next door, the solar installer they kept losing customers to because his quotes came back faster.
So we are building it. SolarTools, RoofTools and PoolTools follow the same pattern as PondTools. You measure from the property, the software sizes the materials from the measurements and prices every line, and the customer sees the result in a photo of their own house.
How we build
We are a small team, and we work closely with a handful of contractors in each trade. They use each tool on real jobs while we build it, and what they need on the first site visit decides what we build next.
We answer our own email. If you write to us, a person who works on the tools will read it.
What we believe
The numbers have to be right.
A volume, a panel count or a number of squares that is ten percent off costs the contractor real money, so every figure in our tools says where it came from.
The customer should see their own house.
A brochure photo of somebody else's pool does not close a sale. A picture of the pool in their own backyard does.
Software has to fit in a site visit.
If it takes longer than a tape measure and a notepad, nobody will use it on the job, so we test every feature in a driveway before we ship it.
What is next
PondTools keeps growing; recent work added lake mapping from LiDAR and photoreal video of a design. SolarTools, RoofTools and PoolTools are in early access with small groups of contractors, and each will open more widely once it holds up on real jobs.