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Use cases

Where drywallDB earns its place

Eleven working situations UK drywall professionals hit every week — what each one costs when it’s done by ring-around, PDF stack and spreadsheet, and what changes when the same job runs through a cited, cross-brand plasterboard database.

On site & at the merchant — substitution

The signature job. The specified board isn't in stock, the programme won't wait, and “or equivalent” only helps if you can prove the equivalent.

01

The specified board isn't available

The spec names a Gyproc board; the merchant has the Knauf and Siniat shelves full. Which one — if any — genuinely covers the specified declaration?

The manual way

  • Ring two or three merchants, then trawl three manufacturers' websites for the current data sheets.
  • Compare EN 520 classifications line by line — and hope you read “Type D, F & H1” against “Type A, D, F, H1, I & R” correctly.
  • Guess whether a moisture class or thickness difference matters. Nobody writes the reasoning down.

With drywallDB

  • One click on ≈ shows each brand's closest or-equivalent candidate at the same thickness, with the rule that selected it spelled out — matched on, differs, and why.
  • Boards whose declarations exceed the spec are listed separately as over-specified alternatives, with the extra classes named.
  • Every value on screen carries its manufacturer source document and revision date.

An afternoon of PDF archaeology becomes a two-minute, explainable answer — one you can defend, not just assert.

See an annotated example of this comparison →

02

Getting a substitution approved in writing

You've found the equivalent. Now the client has to say yes — and they'll want more than “it's basically the same board”.

The manual way

  • An email with a couple of PDF attachments and an informal comparison you typed up yourself.
  • Days of back-and-forth while the client checks your working from scratch.
  • No standard format, so every substitution request starts from a blank page.

With drywallDB

  • A print-ready substitution request generated from the comparison: specified product, the boards proposed under “or equivalent”, basis of comparison, full declared-data table.
  • Every figure cited to the manufacturer document it came from; the assessment cites a versioned rule set, not a hunch.
  • The document is honest by design — a board that doesn't qualify as a candidate under the rules is flagged as a variation, never smuggled through.

The client reviews a document built to be checked, so approval turns on the facts — not on how persuasive your email was.

At the desk — estimating & tendering

Tenders are won on the board that meets the spec, not the board that beats it. Over-specifying is money left on the table.

03

Pricing a tender from a performance spec

The client's spec names no products — just requirements: “12.5mm moisture resistant under 9 kg/m²”. You need every board that meets it, from every brand, before you price a sheet.

The manual way

  • Work from memory of the ranges, plus whichever data sheets are already on your desktop — current revision or not.
  • Default to the brand you know, even when a rival board meets the spec for less.
  • No easy way to see the whole field of boards that meet the spec, so over-specification slips through unnoticed.

With drywallDB

  • Type the spec phrase — or set the same filters — and every board whose declared values meet it, from all three major UK brands, appears at once.
  • Weight, reaction to fire, thermal conductivity and EN 520 classification are all filterable, so a spec clause becomes a filter expression.
  • Boards that exceed the requirement are disclosed as over-specified, so you can price the board that meets it.

You price from the full field of candidates, not from habit — and stop paying for performance the spec never asked for.

04

Comparing boards across brands

Three candidate boards, three brands, one decision. The details that decide it — weight, classification, edge profile, available sizes — live in three differently-formatted PDFs.

The manual way

  • Download three data sheets and retype the numbers into a spreadsheet — introducing transcription errors along the way.
  • Manufacturer literature itself sometimes contains errors, and a spreadsheet gives you no way to notice.
  • The comparison goes stale the moment a sheet is reissued.

With drywallDB

  • Pin the boards and see them side by side — every attribute row aligned, differences highlighted.
  • Each value cites its source document and date; values drywallDB calculates (like per-board weight) are visibly marked as calculated.
  • The catalogue is hand-checked against archived manufacturer documents — discrepancies get raised with the manufacturer, not passed on to you.

A side-by-side table you didn't have to build — with the provenance a spreadsheet can never carry.

05

Is that size even made?

A 2.7 m storey, a wet room, a 15mm board wanted in one length. Does anyone make a 15mm moisture board at 1200×2700mm — and if so, who? You need the answer before you draw the joint, price the sheet or ring the merchant.

The manual way

  • Open each manufacturer's site in turn and hunt for the size table on each product page — where sizes are listed at all.
  • Trust that table, even though manufacturer size tables are among the most error-prone data in the literature.
  • Ring a merchant, who can tell you what they stock, not what exists — and whose answer depends on who picks up.

With drywallDB

  • Choose Moisture, 15 and 2700 in the filter rail — the live count on every chip has answered before you click the last one: which brands declare that format, or that none in the catalogue does.
  • Every size shown is a manufacturer's declared range, cross-checked against its archived data sheet or listing — corrected where the literature itself was wrong.
  • A zero result says so honestly: not in drywallDB's catalogue, which is not the same as not made — and what people look for and can't find shapes which sheets are added next.

The whole market's format answer in three clicks — what's made, by whom, before you commit a drawing or a phone call to it.

The money — rates & buying

Your rates are the half of the decision no manufacturer database can know. drywallDB holds them privately and does the arithmetic.

06

Finding the lowest-cost candidate — at your rates

Two boards both satisfy the spec. Which one is cheaper isn't a fact about the boards — it's a fact about your supplier quotes.

The manual way

  • Dig through old quote emails and a rates spreadsheet that lives on one machine.
  • Convert pack rates to per-board figures on a calculator, per candidate, per supplier.
  • Redo all of it every time availability shifts the candidate list.

With drywallDB

  • The ≈ comparison shows your rate against each board — “the Knauf candidate is −5.8% at your rates” — with the lowest-cost candidate flagged.
  • Rates entered per board, per pack or per m² are normalised to a per-board figure automatically, marked as calculated.
  • A confidential rate comparison prints for internal use — your rates never appear in any outward document.

Declared performance and cost on the same screen — your substitution decision becomes a priced decision.

07

Keeping a supplier rate book that stays useful

Quotes arrive by phone, email and counter ticket, in mixed units, and go out of date quietly. Most firms' rate knowledge lives in one person's head.

The manual way

  • A spreadsheet nobody quite trusts, with no record of when each figure was quoted or by whom.
  • Old and new rates overwrite each other, so there's no history to negotiate from.
  • Quantity breaks and pack sizes handled by memory.

With drywallDB

  • A private rate book per board, per supplier — quotes stored exactly as given, with effective dates and quantity breaks.
  • Updates supersede rather than overwrite, so a dated rate history builds up per supplier.
  • Ageing rates are flagged, prompting a refresh before you price from a stale figure.

Rate knowledge becomes an asset the business owns — dated, private, and ready for the next negotiation.

The paperwork — verification & records

Specs quote numbers; standards get withdrawn; jobs change hands. The cited catalogue is the still point all of it can be checked against.

08

Checking the values in someone else's spec

A spec lands on your desk quoting weights and classifications. Are those the manufacturer's current declared values — or figures copied from a data sheet three revisions ago?

The manual way

  • Hunt down each product's current data sheet and eyeball the figures one by one.
  • No easy way to know whether the sheet you found is the latest revision.
  • Most spec values simply go unchecked — until one of them matters on site.

With drywallDB

  • Look the product up and read its current declared values, each one cited to a named, dated manufacturer document.
  • Superseded documents are tracked, so “current” means checked-current — not “first search result”.
  • Discrepancies surface before they're built in, while they're still a query rather than a claim.

Spec values checked against the current published declaration in minutes — with the citation to show for it.

09

Decoding old specs and withdrawn standards

An older spec cites BS 1230, “Class 0” or BS 2750 — standards that no longer exist. What does the requirement mean in today's terms?

The manual way

  • Forum threads and half-remembered rules of thumb.
  • Informal “conversion tables” that no standards body has ever published.
  • Risk of writing a dead designation straight into a new submission.

With drywallDB

  • Plain-English explainers cover what replaced each withdrawn standard, and when.
  • Where no official conversion exists, drywallDB says so — rather than inventing one.
  • The same plain-English treatment runs through the app: every technical term carries a tooltip.

A straight answer on obsolete standards — including the honest one: “no official conversion exists”.

10

Searching the way the trade actually talks

Nobody on site says “12.5mm Type F”. They say “half inch fire board”, “8x4”, or quote a merchant's material code.

The manual way

  • Manufacturer site search wants the exact product name — and each brand names things differently.
  • Translating imperial habits to metric catalogue entries in your head, every time.
  • A misspelling or a nickname returns nothing, with no hint why.

With drywallDB

  • Trade language works: “half inch fire board”, “8x4”, brand nicknames and material numbers all resolve.
  • The interpretation is disclosed above the results — you can always see how your words were read, and search literally instead.
  • Spec-style phrases work too: “moisture resistant under 9 kg/m²” filters exactly as written.

The database meets you in your own vocabulary — no brand-by-brand translation step.

11

Keeping job records a colleague can open

The comparison behind a decision lives in your head, your browser history, or a screenshot in a message thread. Then someone else picks up the job.

The manual way

  • Screenshots and email chains that capture the conclusion but not the working.
  • Rebuilding the comparison from scratch when the job resurfaces months later.
  • No link between the tender-stage decision and the data it was based on.

With drywallDB

  • Comparisons and searches save into named projects — “Riverside tender” holds its own working.
  • Every view is a link: a colleague opens it, signs in, and lands on the same comparison, live.
  • Saved comparisons replay against current data, and flag it if a board has since been superseded.

The working travels with the job — shareable, replayable, and still checkable a year on.

A note on the claims

Every capability on this page is shipped and in the product today — nothing here is roadmap. The catalogue currently covers 45 plasterboard products and 198 SKUs across British Gypsum, Knauf and Siniat, built from 72 archived, cited manufacturer source documents, each value hand-checked before import.

Two things drywallDB deliberately does not do: it never prints fire-resistance minutes for a board (fire resistance belongs to tested systems, not boards — and we won’t print data we can’t cite), and it never publishes market prices (your rates are yours, private by design). The full working — the drywallDB methodology — covers the data classes, the versioned rules, and the complete list of refusals.

One caution applies to every substitution story above: fire-rated systems are tested with specific boards, so board-for-board substitution within a rated build-up is not automatically valid. drywallDB shows each board’s declared reaction to fire; fire resistance belongs to the tested system.

Eleven jobs. One database. Every value cited.

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