Home Calculators

Bulk material, sheet material, or a count

The bulk material tools, concrete, gravel, topsoil, sand and mulch, all resolve to cubic yards, and the cubic yard calculator does the same job when you already know the volume and just want it converted. The sheet and length tools, flooring, drywall, deck boards and board feet, resolve to a piece count instead. Knowing which of the two shapes your project has tells you which half of this section to open, because ordering soil by the sheet or plywood by the yard both go wrong quickly.

Concrete Calculator

for slab volume in cubic yards, with the bag count for small pours.

Topsoil Calculator

for bed volume with a bag and bulk cost comparison, and an editable soil density.

Gravel Calculator

for paths and driveways, where tonnage matters as much as volume.

Square Footage Calculator – Sq Ft for Any Room

for the area step on its own, which most of the others start from.

Cubic Yard Calculator

for generic yardage when the material presets are not what you need.

Where these calculations go wrong

Depth entered in the wrong unit

Length and width come naturally in feet and depth almost always comes in inches, so the depth field is where the error lands. Entering four meaning inches while the unit is set to feet gives an order twelve times too large, and the number often looks plausible enough to send.

Ordering the volume rather than the delivery

Loose material settles and compacts, and ground that looks flat has low spots that only appear once you start spreading. The volume these tools give is the geometry of the space, which is a starting quantity rather than what will finally sit there.

Questions about home

Why is everything in cubic yards?

Because that is how bulk material is sold and delivered. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, which is a cube three feet on every side, and suppliers saying yards mean that volume rather than a length or a square yard of coverage.

Do these estimates include waste?

Only where a tool says so. Several of the concrete tools take an explicit waste percentage, because that is standard practice for a pour. The bulk material tools give the geometry of the space and leave the allowance to you, since how much is sensible depends on the site and the supplier.

Related sections

• Money for the loan and budget side of a project once the material list is priced.
• Unit Converters for length, area and volume conversions when a supplier quotes in units you did not measure in.