Calculators
Measurements in, materials list and price out. Groundworks, concrete, cable sizing, tiling, scaffold — yours, with your rates, on your site so customers price themselves before they ring.
Automation for Cornwall’s trades
The job you do every evening,
done by lunchtime.
Certificates typed up from a notebook. The same materials sum worked out on a van bonnet. A quote rebuilt from scratch because the last one’s on a different laptop. We build the small, specific tool that takes that job off your plate — for construction trades, by someone who spent forty years doing the jobs.
Kernow.ai builds bespoke automation for Cornwall’s construction trades: calculators, voice-to-PDF certificate tools, inspection apps, quoting tools and admin automation. Built to order in St Austell, secure by design, quoted per project with a fixed price before work starts. Live examples include Cornwall Steel Buildings’ calculators and the InspectVoice inspection app.
What gets built, and for whom
Certificates, voice to PDF
Say it on site, get the finished certificate as a PDF. Built for one standard at a time so it’s right, not roughly right.
Inspection apps
Photographed, risk-rated, report-ready. InspectVoice does this for playground inspection to BS EN 1176; the same approach works for any inspection with a standard behind it.
Quoting and admin
Quotes from your price list that never invent a figure. Follow-ups that go out when you forget. Enquiry-to-job-to-invoice without retyping. Small tools, joined up.
Live, not mock-ups
Things you can go and use right now
cornwallsteelbuildings.co.uk
Steel buildings: calculators that turn a visitor into a priced enquiry
Groundworks calculator, 3D building designer, cost-per-square-metre guide and a get-a-price form, with Foredesk (“Jago”) answering on the front. Covers Cornwall and Devon.
Visit the site →cornwallplaysafety.co.uk
InspectVoice: a voice-driven inspection app, used on site
An RPII-accredited inspector speaks the findings; the app produces the photographed, risk-rated report to BS EN 1176. The website and its Foredesk assistant were built alongside it.
Read the case study →tradecalcs.co.uk
TradeCalcs: free calculators for trades
Cable sizing and voltage drop to BS 7671, radiator BTU, boiler sizing, brick and block, concrete, tiling, drainage, scaffold, CIS. Free, no sign-up. The same approach, built for your firm, with your prices.
Use the calculators →The rule before anything is built
Three questions, and all three have to be yes
- 01Does it fix something that’s actually costing you? Time, money, or enquiries. If we can’t name it, we don’t build it.
- 02Would it be right for the next five firms like yours? If yes, it gets built properly and stays maintained. If it’s a one-off, you’ll be told it’s a one-off and priced as one.
- 03Can it be built to the standard, and kept running? Secure, tested, GDPR done. If the honest answer is “buy the £20-a-month tool”, that’s the advice.
Built the right way
Your customers’ data, treated like it
UK GDPR by design, data held in the UK or EU, access checked on the server not just in the app, every change tested before it ships, and a written note of exactly where your data goes and who processes it. The same standard as Foredesk and Kelvo.
Read the build standard →Straight answers
- What kind of automation do you build for a trade?
- Things that remove a repeated job from the owner’s evening: calculators that turn a site measurement into a materials list, certificate tools that go from voice to PDF, inspection apps built for one standard, quoting tools that use your prices and never invent one, and the admin glue between them. If it doesn’t save you time every week it isn’t worth building, and we’ll say so.
- How much does a bespoke build cost?
- Quoted per project — fixed scope, fixed price, agreed in writing before any work starts. Tell us the job you keep doing by hand and you’ll get a figure. If the honest answer is “buy an off-the-shelf tool for £20 a month”, that’s what you’ll hear.
- Will it be secure? It’ll hold customer details.
- Yes. Every build goes through the same standard: UK GDPR by design, data held in the UK or EU, access checked on the server, every change tested before it ships, and a written note of exactly where your data goes. See How we build. If you’ve had something built by someone else and want it checked, that’s the Vibe-Code Security Review.
- Do you build for anyone, or just trades?
- Construction trades and the businesses around them — inspection firms, suppliers, specialist contractors. That’s where forty years of experience is, and it shows in the tool. Not financial services, nothing involving medical records.
- Can I see something you’ve built?
- Cornwall Steel Buildings has a groundworks calculator, a 3D building designer and a cost-per-square-metre guide, all live. Cornwall Play Safety runs InspectVoice, a voice-driven inspection app, on site. TradeCalcs is a free set of calculators for trades. All linked on this page.
Tell me the job you keep doing by hand
Twenty minutes, in person or on the phone. You’ll get a straight answer on whether it’s worth building, and a fixed quote if it is.
Describe the job