You have probably used a measuring tape in one of your DIY projects, or at least you carried one. It is a very useful tool when it comes to measuring, that is why most people have one of those yellow measuring tapes laying around the house, probably in a toolbox or a drawer. However, homeowners are not the only ones using it, builders and construction workers seem to use it quite often. There are different measuring tapes when it comes to measuring distances, some indicate feet and inches, others indicate meters and centimeters. Despite the differences, they all have one thing in common, the little mark that you ignored and I bet you don’t know what it stands for.
The marks are black diamonds and red and black boxes around numbers. The goal behind them is to make life easier for users like yourself and construction workers.
The red and black boxes are an indication for the usual distance between studs in houses and traditional buildings and that is 16 inches (around 40.64 cm). Separated by 24 inches, the marks indicate stud placements in small buildings or houses like a shed for example. The boxes can help builders save time when marking lines for stud placements.
Apart from the red and black boxes, there are black diamonds as well. They represent spacing. They are commonly used for concrete block chimney construction, and when they are 19.2 inches apart (around 48.768 cm) they indicate a placement that allows more weight loads with fewer wood pieces. However, you should know that this sometimes does not meet building codes in some places.
This is basically it, of course, measuring tapes are not used only by construction workers, it will come in handy in your DIY projects especially if you are planning to work with wood, or when building a shed in your backyard.
