About

One result, four numbers

Most material calculators give you a single number. That number is the volume. Volume alone never finishes a shopping trip.

You still need the order amount. You need the bag or box count. You need the weight of the load and a fair idea of the cost.

So every tool on this site answers four questions at once. How much material the job holds. How much to order with waste added. How many bags, boxes or tons that order means. And what it weighs or costs.

One screen holds the whole answer, so one trip to the store does the job.

What the calculators cover

The toolbox covers the jobs people plan most. Concrete and concrete bags for slabs, footings and post holes. Square footage and flooring for rooms. Paint and tile for walls and floors.

Gravel, mulch, topsoil, stone and sand serve the yard. Board foot and lumber serve wood work. A cubic yard calculator ties the loose materials together, since almost every yard job ends in cubic yards.

Each tool asks the same simple things. The shape of your space. Its length, width and depth. The material you plan to use. Then it does the math.

The toolbox keeps growing. A new calculator joins when a job proves common and its math can stay honest and simple.

Made for the planning stage

Homeowners plan weekend jobs here before they buy a thing. DIY builders check a number before a store run. Contractors run a fast estimate before they quote a job.

The site fits the moment in the yard aisle too. You stand in front of a wall of bags and wonder how many to load. A phone, a tape measure and thirty seconds give you the count.

How the numbers work

The math here is no secret. Each tool uses the plain formulas builders have used for years. Length times width times depth gives volume. Divide cubic feet by 27 and you get cubic yards.

Bag counts come from maker yields. One 80 lb bag of concrete mix yields about 0.60 cubic feet of wet concrete. Divide your volume by the yield and round up. That is the bag count.

Weights come from supplier densities. Crushed gravel runs about 2,800 lb per cubic yard. Topsoil runs about 2,200 lb per cubic yard. Each tool shows the density it uses, so you can see the basis of the number.

Every tool adds a waste allowance that you control. Real jobs spill, settle, sink and cut. The default allowance is 10 percent. Raise it for rough ground or lower it for a clean, flat job.

A quick example shows the whole flow. A 10 by 10 foot slab at 4 inches thick holds 33.33 cubic feet. That is 1.23 cubic yards. With 10 percent waste, you order 1.36 cubic yards, or 62 bags of 80 lb mix. The load weighs about 2.72 tons.

Nothing hides in a black box here. When a result puzzles you, the tool page shows the formula under the tool, in plain steps.

Honest numbers, not promises

These results are planning estimates. They help you order material and set a budget. They are not a survey, and they are not an engineering report.

Loose material changes in the real world. Wet soil weighs more than dry soil. Stone packs down under its own weight. Ground that looks flat rarely is. Each change moves the real amount a little.

The waste allowance covers most of that movement. For a big order, one more check helps. Call the local yard before you pay. Yard staff know their own gravel, soil and stone, and a short call beats a second delivery fee.

Depth is the number that moves a result most. One inch of depth across a wide bed can add a bag or more. Measure depth at a few spots and use the average.

And if a number here ever looks wrong to you, tell us. Reader corrections make the tools sharper, and real errors get fixed.

Free means free

Every calculator on this site is free. No sign up. No account. No paywall and no trial that runs out.

The tools run in your browser, on your own device. The sizes you type never leave your phone or computer. The site never sees your project and never stores it.

Ads may help pay the hosting bill as the site grows. Ads never touch the math. A formula has no sponsor.

Guides next to the tools

The site now grows a shelf of project guides next to the tools. Each guide takes one common job and walks it from the first measure to the final load.

Guides use the same formulas as the calculators. You can check every number in a guide inside the linked tool. New guides join the shelf over time, and reader ideas shape what comes next.

Talk to us

Questions, corrections and ideas for new tools all go through the contact page. We read every message. When a reply helps, we write back.