Sketch the duct run the way you always have. Get the cut list, the fitting count, the diffusers, and the material order before you climb down. No CAD. No classes. No desk.
START YOUR 2 WEEKS FREEIf you can sketch a run on the back of a submittal, you can run this app. Your finger is the pencil.
First takeoff in ten minutes. It draws the way the trade already reads it.
It lives on the phone in your pocket and works standing under the deck โ where the duct actually goes.
Every cut prints its math, connector deductions and all. Check every number before you shear.
Drag your finger the way the duct runs. Legs snap to real directions. Don't know a length? Mark it โ?โ and it gets solved.
Pick your liner thickness once and it sizes the duct to the free area you need, and puts wrap and pins on the insulation list โ not the metal list.
Tap in the takeoffs, flex whips, boots, and every diffuser. Rack in the way? Mark it and it dodges, counting the added fittings and the offset math.
Cut list with the connector deductions shown, the fitting and diffuser schedule, hangers and ceiling wires counted, and the consumables โ screws, slips, drives, sealant โ on their own list.
Not a GPS voice. Nothing says “in five hundred feet, make a U-turn” and nothing reads you a paragraph you didn’t ask for. You say what you need, it says “got it” and does it. That’s the whole personality.
Talk the parts that are easier to say. Tap the parts that are easier to tap. It’s an option, not a mode you get stuck in.
Tape in one hand, phone in your pocket. Say the number and it lands on the leg you’re pointing at โ you never climb down to type it, and you never write it on your hand.
Nobody types with gloves on and nobody wants grinder dust on the glass. Talk instead of peeling everything off every time you get a dimension.
Sun blowing out the phone, a dark mechanical room, or eyes that just aren’t what they were at twenty-five. Ask, and it tells you โ out loud, short.
Some of the best hands in this trade don’t type fast, don’t like to, and have spent thirty years getting handed a keyboard by somebody half their age. Talk to it instead. It never makes a thing of it.
You: “Trunk runs ten foot, then offset over the rack”
It: “Got it.”
You: “What’s that cut?”
It: “Forty two inches.”
And when it has to stop you:
It: “You're short for the connector โ that one won't make up.”
Short. Plain. In the language the job already uses.
The number you lose is the one you read at the top of a ladder and wrote down two minutes later. Say it the second you read it and it’s in the sketch, on the right leg, before you’ve moved.
And the guy who’s been running work for thirty years shouldn’t have to learn to thumb-type to use the tool that carries his own knowledge. He talks. It listens. That was the point of the whole thing.
Drag your finger. Pull the trigger. That's the training.
Duct-Shot is field-tested by Bel Air Mechanical crews on live commercial work. These are our jobs โ nothing staged.
You're standing in the basement looking at the actual job โ not a drawing from somebody's office.
Every length, every fitting, every connector โ counted off the real conditions, with the math shown.
One trip to the counter with the full list. The transition nobody counted? Already on it.
Change order? Homeowner asking "how much"? You've got the material list before you're up the stairs.
Every shop has one. The guy who walks a ceiling and just knows โ which way the trunk should run, how much the connector eats, that the transition has to start two feet before the beam, that the last ten feet is where the job falls apart.
He learned it over forty years, mostly from someone else who never wrote it down either. Now he's retiring โ and unless somebody catches it, all of it leaves with him.
Meanwhile the new guy gets a tape, a print, and "figure it out." He's not lazy. Nobody ever taught him. That gap is what costs you scrap metal, rework, callbacks, and the good young hands who quit because they felt stupid.
Connector allowances by type, gauge and reinforcement by size and pressure class, free-area sizing on lined duct, flex and diffuser counts. Not guesses. If a number isn't published, it says VERIFY instead of pretending.
It flags the piece that can't be made โ the transition with nowhere to start, the offset that won't clear โ before the shear. The save happens at the brake, not on the lift.
Field dimension โ connector allowance at each end = CUT, printed next to the piece. The apprentice learns the deduction while he uses it โ that's how it actually sticks.
The layout knowledge of a forty-year sheet-metal foreman, in every pocket on the crew, on every job, forever. That's the whole point.
None of this was ever a secret. It's just what needs to be taught โ and nobody ever wrote it down. So we did, and we're giving it away. We're not holding the trade hostage behind a paywall. The app is the product. The knowledge belongs to the trade โ hand it to your apprentice on day one, print the whole thing and hang it in the shop.
Two tracks. Every box reads itself out loud if you'd rather listen than read.
Learn the app in an afternoon.
The trade behind the buttons. Hand this to every apprentice on day one.
Connector deductions: the drawing gives you the duct run. The connector is what eats โ or adds โ the difference. CUT = field dimension โ the allowance at each end. On slip & drive you take metal off: run your shop's standard allowance per joint and a 10'-0" section comes off the brake short of ten feet, on purpose. TDC goes the other way โ the flange is rolled out of the duct metal itself, so the blank gets cut long, not short.
Two connectors, two corrections, in opposite directions. Miss it once on a twelve-joint run and you're inches out by the time you reach the last piece โ and the last piece is always the one with nowhere to go.
That's one paragraph out of twenty modules. All of it free.
No login. No email. Print it and hang it in the shop.
It's funny because it's true, and it's true because we've all lived it. Every laugh has a lesson hiding in it โ that's how the trade trains the new guy, and it's how we built the app.
Don't like reading? Neither do we. Hit ๐ LISTEN on any box and it reads that one out loud.
Nobody ever quit the trade over a hard day โ they quit over being lost and too proud to say so. Humor is how crews teach without anyone admitting they're learning. That's the product too. Duct-Shot tells you the truth about the math and never makes you feel stupid for asking.
The full takeoff engine, laser link, cut lists, and the complete training library. Same price for a one-man shop or a hundred hands โ no tiers, no corporate discount.
START MY 2 WEEKS FREE2 weeks free, then $59/mo per seat. Cancel anytime.
Step-by-step how-to videos plus Foreman School โ duct sizing, connector deductions, hangers, sealing, field measuring. Unlocked the minute you sign up.
Tell it 1" or 2" liner and the app builds the duct to the free area you need โ not the size somebody scribbled on the print.
External wrap gets figured by the square foot off the actual run and lands on the insulation list โ separate vendor, separate order.
Exposed spiral in a warehouse? Say so once and it stops adding insulation you're not installing.
The stuff that stops the job at 3 p.m. โ pins, clips, adhesive โ counted with the run, not guessed at the counter.
Trunk line's the easy part. The takeoffs, the flex whips, the boots, and every diffuser and register โ that's where the count falls apart and somebody drives back to the supply house.
Drop a flex whip off the trunk, give it a length, and it counts the flex, the collar, the damper, and the clamps.
Neck size, boot, and the grille โ counted per opening so the schedule and your order actually match.
Code says support it independently of the grid. The app counts two wires on every diffuser โ the item that's missed on nearly every layout.
Give it the spacing and it counts the hangers, straps, and rod for the whole run โ including the extra pair at every offset.
On duct, the killer isn't a missing elbow โ it's the box of screws, the slips and drives, the sealant, and the cable ties nobody counted. The Bucket tracks the consumables: what you've got on the truck, what the run actually needs, and what to grab before you leave.
Per joint, per size, off the real run โ not "grab a bundle and hope."
Figured by the number of joints and the linear feet, so the mastic doesn't run out mid-riser.
Counted on your spacing, with the extras at offsets and every diffuser's two wires included.
Tell it what you already have and it only orders the difference. Quit paying twice for a box of #10s.
One trip. The consumables are the trip you didn't plan for.
Duct-Shot is field-proven by Bel Air Mechanical crews on real commercial work. Drop your email and your two weeks start the day we open the doors.