How To Read An Imperial Tape Measure

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Shannon from www.house-improvements.com shows you how to read and use an imperial tape measure. They can be confusing especially if you're new to DIY home improvements. There are many lines and fractions.
If you have questions about your home improvement projects, stop by the forum on our website, where Shannon will answer your questions in detail for free.
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Video © 2016 SKS Media. Videos produced by SKS Media (House-Improvements.com) are provided for informational purposes only. The information contained in the videos is intended to give general guidance to simplify DIY (do it yourself) projects. Because tools, products, materials, equipment, techniques, building codes and local regulations are constantly changing, SKS Media cannot and does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained therein. Further, SKS Media will not accept any claim for liability related to, but not limited to, omissions, errors, injury, damage or the outcome of any project. It is the responsibility of the viewer to ensure compliance with all applicable laws, rules, codes and regulations for a project. The viewer must always take proper safety precautions and exercise caution when taking on any project. If there are any questions or doubt in regards to the element of a project, please consult with a licensed professional. SKS Media conducts all matters in accordance with the laws of Saskatchewan, Canada.

[@erickguerra5011]

You're GREAT Shannon. Thank you for all your professional tips. We need you. DON'T QUIT

[@VidzMisc]

very well explained, i use metric but always wondered how to read an imperial tape measure and it is not nearly as difficult as i once believed it to be. i watch a lot of guys on youtube and they use imperial so now knowing this it provides clarity. cheers & continue to share valuable content

[@xavi7914]

oh my god! Sir. ....for real...my respect!...I'm a metric user and I've being wodering how in all heavens coud I learn to use...or even understand the imperial system....thanks to you....now I got my mind cleared! Thanks man...really really thanks!

[@betobsbf]

It's actually impossible to be more clear than that.Thank you.

[@Pyridox]

That is good that you showed about the play in the tape measure blade end. A lot of people think that their tape measure has a problem because the end tab has a 1/16" play. Some people flatten the little rivets on the end tab thinking they are fixing it, when their tape measure will be off by a 1/16 when taking outside measurements.

[@Maxid1]

I think I been able to read and imperial tape measure since I was 480 little tickies tall.

[@Maxid1]

***** Depends on what little tickies you're talking about, But I was very advanced...

[@samraa2006]

Maxid1 thats because your used to it ..... for metric countries its really hard to read we never told its increments ....the video was so helpful ....lol

[@Pittsflynn]

thanks shannon for taking the time to make vids, peace

[@zehnsechz]

thank you for the video shannon. we know this stuff, but you gave us a video that we can link to others

[@farmerkees]

Thanks so much great easy to follow video keep up the great content 😀

[@agnosjr]

Thank you for sharing this information!

[@lailaastoria9627]

Tks so much... i m used to cm... moving to Canada and studying design i really needed a such simple explanation... u did it better than my teachers 👍 bravo

[@matthewbraun6517]

Video advice -- You should set up more than one camera so you the camera guy doesn't have to zoom in and out and in. So you can edit it to a very nice transition from you talking to the tape measure then back to you talking and the back to the tape measure. Just an idea to build better quality.

[@EduardoFritisRealtor]

Very crear explanation! Awesome videos.

[@OurBuild]

Great tips Shannon

[@samraa2006]

You know I always use metric system because its standard in here but with your video I finally understood imperial ... I feel its little complicated comparing to metric ... thanks alot mystery solved !!!!

[@edichicaiza12]

thanks. for sharing

[@Qaeadatna]

thank you alot ,that was helpful

[@jules-qs5qn]

Thanks i really needed this for school

[@rajbindermann]

Beautiful, I got it now. Thanks

[@HouseImprovements]

Wonderful!

[@theshepo2082]

Great series i have learned a lot from them, can you possibly do one on making rafters for a roof? Thanks.

[@alanlukes7668]

Thank you

[@resolution55555]

4 little tickies LOL! Great video as always! Thanks.

[@HouseImprovements]

thanks

[@uhlich1]

Big thx

[@AluminumStud]

Just to add to the confusion, In America, we also have engineer's tapes which are feet divided into 10 tenths and so on. I'm a civil engineer and we use them all of the time for surveying and construction. I like a typical english tape for framing and just cutting lengths of decking or something, but I use the metric side for doing plywood wall sheathing and small finish carpentry.

[@NoSQLKnowHow]

As I have started building more and more things, I have been migrating to using metric more and more. I grew up with imperial, know it, but have had an easier and more exact time with metric.

[@shygirlnow2011]

I wish I had your skills. I would flip houses and use the $ for charity!!! :) Oh, I tried to take a construction management class at community college. But, I have a learning disabilty in Math so I ended up dropping the class. I just subbed you I want to see if I can learn anything from you. :)

[@andrewhope8698]

The US building/mining industry is the real holdout for Imperial system. At some point, I hope they will join the military in recognizing the convenience of thinking in Base 10. Otherwise, this was a great video. Especially converting feet-inches to decimal feet. This makes it not so daunting to memorize. Two thumbs up

[@Kakabrown]

Do you have a link to the tape at 1:50 for the tape that has the fractions by the little tickies? Haha. Makes it easier when i need someone to hold it and read out measurements

[@yellowdeer7163]

As far as the tickies go we use to say something like 45 and 3 notches and we all new what that meant. It was all in fun. I myself don't know the metric system and probably never will. Oh well.

[@TravisInCanada1]

I grew up around both systems but find metric more straight forward. However measuring tapes are probably the easier of the measurements to learn given you can commonly buy them with both forms clearly displayed. It is when you get into other examples of measurement things get wonky lol. Fortunately we have the internet now days and provided you are not lazy it can easily be found out.

[@hunatae]

never noticed the first foot does 1/32 increments. that's just so small, it all looked the same to me. Also never heard "tickie" before. everyone will always say like 4 inches and 3 "lines"

[@spacewolfjr]

how many cubits per square metron?

[@thomassteudter9074]

I (as a German) would like to know the following: Do the units in which an inch is subdivided also have any special or official names? By that I mean other names instead of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32. Oh, and something else. Is the name "tickies" really meant seriously or is it just a joke?

[@farmerkees]

Thomas Steudter it's just a Joke 😁

[@SF80CAMARO]

my tape has only Tickys no Numbers...it takes forever to count.

[@Wetbroccoli]

can you do a tutorial on reading blue prints?

[@HouseImprovements]

+DTF GILF Wow that can get pretty complicated at times, not sure if we could cover everything.

[@Wetbroccoli]

HouseImprovements well now that's a good challenge eh? hopefully focusing mainly on framing. something a DIY may need do know

[@hmax1591]

"...unless you are doing some real fine woodworking then honestly, I recommend you go to a metric tape measure." So metric means better quality. Engineers in Europe have always mocked American automobile makers and their use of the Imperial system, claiming the metric system allows them to make more precise-close tolerances in cars thus making a finer quality product. I remember when I was a teen and practically forced to learn metric and how the American people where /are so reluctant to except metric.

[@rguptaca]

Great video on why imperial should be retired:) Having said that I flip back and forth between metric and imperial.

[@andrewhope8698]

No, your response is ignorant... and rude, actually. It's common sense that thinking in base 10 is infinitely easier than thinking in base 12, but as you do.

[@cjpenning]

I've seen tapes that split inches into tenths. What's the point of that?

[@cjpenning]

Yes, makes sense because I think I have it on my 100 foot tape. Still, if you're going to use tenths you might as well go full metric.

[@meanders9221]

In the U.S. but I can use both. Doesn't matter which system you use as long as you're consistent. But I've never understood how someone could not know fractions...they are inherent in the world around us. Don't you cut a pie in halves, quarters, eighths? Don't you do the same thing when you split firewood? Things that are round and need dividing into equal parts are ubiquitous. When you share a candy bar with your buddy you cut it in half, right? Or maybe you only give him half of a half :( . Have to admit though, here in the U.S. I encounter kids (20 yrs old) who say "twelve and four little tickies", or worse "what are these little black marks again?". So I go thru an explanation like you did here or in some cases get them a tape like one of yours that has all the fractions identified.

[@AlexanderNecheff]

+Michael Anderson I usually just use Euclidean division so I only have to bother with integers; but in excess 1023 notation I only need a to do bitwise operations on a 64 bit word as long as I'm willing to accept a small loss of accuracy :-P In all seriousness though, I don't necessarily think it is the idea of division that is the problem so much as once you get out past half or quarter increments it becomes less and less intuitive to think about the values; which is part of the reason why other units of measurement were developed instead of going out to 1/4096th of an inch or something ridiculous like that. Just as an example, I don't think about cutting pie in 1/8ths, I think of recursively halving the current chunk until I get to a size I want to eat. So I'm never actually dealing with anything besides a bunch of halves.

[@meanders9221]

+Alexander Necheff Well, yes...the intuitiveness and ease of achieving any fraction you need just by iterative halving is the point. Fortunately in the macroscopic world we don't need to do that more than 4 or 5 times to get down to the smallest increments we need, approx. same as 1mm. But that was a point about reading tapes. Really, I don't know why the U.S. hasn't followed the rest of the world to the metric system, if for no other reason than to standardize. Possibly a "not invented here" attitude?

[@AlexanderNecheff]

Realizing that it is all halves is the trick though. Albeit not a very impressive trick. :-D Maybe, although we did not invent it, it was imported from Europe, but it has been the "tradition" to use imperial. You always hear about how much it would cost to change highway signs from miles to kilometers. And with stuff like weather, my parents and grandparents are not able to assign value to temperature in terms of Celsius. Should they learn it: yes, will they take the time to learn it: probably not. Now when I went to grade school I learned both systems. So I suspect as the years go on we'll be more and more open to moving to metric formally.

[@zeehellusay]

You should have learned fraction in the 3rd grade. When I'm handing measurements to someone I hand them everything in 16ths. then there is no confusion as to if what I meant. I hand you a measurement of 12-8 x 24-12 It's very clear of that I want and it is easier to write things down. If you can't convert any part of an inch into 16ths, you don't need to be building things.

[@HouseImprovements]

+Nunya Business Nice idea.

[@Brandon-no3vc]

Isn’t there 64ths too?

[@HouseImprovements]

64ths,128thss,256ths, ect ect. If you have to measure more accurately than 32nds with a tape measure you will pushing your limits of the tape measure ! lol.

[@HouseImprovements]

I have never seen a tape with 64ths markings on it . You would need to magnify it to read it

[@Maxid1]

I eyeball a lot of stuff. That's why I can tell that your first half inch in quarters is 3/8ths and maybe 3/32nds. Not quite quarters. Doesn't make any difference as to the excellent explanation though.

[@benjamindejonge3624]

One dollar feet and 3 ticks + one thou

[@vvvizuals4786]

the 5 ppl who disliked this video are americans lmao!

[@brothyr]

n/10 works for everything. We (USA) could stay with Imperial/SAE but use n/10 and it'd be simple.

[@brothyr]

+Adam R but mostly because it'd make transferring computer dimensions- n.nn - to the project infinitely easier.

[@bluelightfox]

+Adam R I've been doing that more and more, e.g. 8.125 inches instead of 8 and 1/8 inches. I still like to use a calculator (and possibly a diagram) for anything sufficiently complex, but using decimals eliminates all the steps involved in converting all the fractions to a common denominator (and, usually, back again). For some projects, i.e. where the materials, advice, tutorials, etc. are all in imperial units, it's just easier to work with imperial units. Converting everything may not be worth the time. I do wish we'd switched to metric, though. Tradespeople don't notice the complexity because they've already memorized workarounds that hide it.

[@brothyr]

Michael Matthews I just started using ft/in but mm instead of fractions. A couple of my tape measures have both systems anyway and it's turned out very easy and very accurate.

[@bluelightfox]

Mine don't have both systems, but it sounds like a great option. Thanks! I'll pick up a dual system tape next time I'm at the store. I'm not sure if you mean you're using the decimal digits to indicate mm; that could be confusing to others. e.g. you mark something 16.5", and someone else interprets it as 16 1/2 inches, not 16 inches 5 mm.

[@brothyr]

Michael Matthews 16in 12mm

[@LUXURYXX11]

.

[@penfoldooo2160]

"a lot of countries are using metric" - lol. The *whole planet*, except for 3 (that's THREE) countries, use metric. Only Liberia, Myanmar and the USA still use imperial - less than 5% of the planet's population. Kind of embarrassing. Thanks anyway. As you say, some people find fractions/math hard.

[@ddud4966]

+Penfold 'OoO' The UK still uses a lot of their old units.

[@penfoldooo2160]

digitaldud Whether or not some old fogeys cling on to the old units, or random industries do likewise is irrelevant. Every change has a transition period. When legislation has been passed and schools teach metric that's when the transition has clearly begun and a new system has been adopted. For the UK I think that happened in 1974 or thereabouts. If we waited for crusty old farts to convert to anything new the human species would never evolve.

[@penfoldooo2160]

rgentbuilders It was broke. That's why they fixed it. Stop living in denial. Only backwards countries still use imperial. Lose the ego and throw all your outdated trinkets in the bin.

[@penfoldooo2160]

+rgentbuilders Hey, you are free to keep writing on clay tablets, and pray to the sky gods to bring rain, and sacrifice a lamb to ensure your tomatoes will grow in the spring, and ride your steam trains... no skin off my nose. Just don't pretend that you aren't in a backwards minority when you do so...

[@PastorManningPhD]

+rgentbuilders Shut the fuck up. He's completely wrong. Not his fault your a braindead american paying taxes to Israel that owns you.