... i get errors saying in put string in wrong format , so my prob is i cant even get to inputs to add together
Running your code under "Debug" allows you to look at the value of, for instance, "inches.text" and what it says is "Inches". This is not a number, hence the error message. I think this is merely because it should have been "ins.text" (which is the name of the textbox rather than its accompanying label).
You are almost there!
In general, it may help to incorporate the type of the control with its name. If you had called them "labInches" and "textInches" then you might not have chosen the wrong one.
I could have said, in my earlier message about (not) dividing by zero, that it can also be helpful to check if the entered string is numeric (using IsNumeric(), for example) before putting it in a calculation.
HTH, Mike.