Paver Sand Calculator: Bedding Course and Joint Sand

Two different materials get called paver sand, they are bought in two different units, and the quantities are about ten times apart. The inch of coarse sand screeded under the pavers is a bulk order measured in tons. The sand swept into the gaps afterwards is a handful of bags. Mixing those up is the single most common ordering error on a patio, and it is worth clearing before any measuring starts.

What this estimate can and cannot tell you

This tool sizes the bedding course, and it sizes it at exactly one inch. That is the whole scope.

It does not size the joints, because joint material is counted by bag coverage rather than by volume, and the chart further down handles that. It does not size the compacted stone under the bedding, which is a separate and much larger order on the paver base calculator. And it cannot see the thing that actually decides whether a Texas patio stays flat, which is what the subgrade is doing. Clay that swells after a wet week and shrinks through a dry August moves whatever sits on it, and a deeper sand bed is not the answer to that. The answer is depth in the stone below.

There is also a second sand tool on this site with a different job. The sand calculator handles bulk sand at any depth you like, for bedding pipe, filling a sandbox, backfilling or mixing. Use it when you are buying sand by the yard for something other than a paver bed. Use this page when the depth is fixed at one inch under pavers.

Tons for the bed, bags for the joints

The bedding calculation runs on coarse sand at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons, the site's published figure for mason and washed sand. A cubic yard spread one inch deep covers 324 square feet, so a patio takes roughly 0.42 tons of bedding for every 100 square feet of area.

Bedding tons = (area in square feet x 1 ÷ 12) ÷ 27 x 1.35

Joints work off bag coverage instead, because the volume depends on paver thickness and gap width rather than on floor area alone. One 50 lb bag covers 40 to 75 square feet with standard joints of 1/8 to 1/4 inch.

Thicker pavers and wider gaps both cut coverage, so follow the figures on the bag you buy and round up. Bagged joint fill is sourced locally, from a hardware store or a landscape yard, and never goes on this order.

Setting the paver sand calculator to a depth of one

Enter the base footprint, not the paved surface. That means the paved area plus the 6-inch extension past every open edge, the same figure the base was ordered against, because the bedding runs out to the edge restraint.

Shape options are Rectangle for length and width in feet, Circle for a diameter, and Multiple areas for up to five pieces added together, which is the setting for a patio with a path running off it. The depth field accepts anything from 0.25 to 24 inches. Type 1 and leave it there. The five percent tick for compaction and spillage is worth having on, since screeding wastes a little at every rail. Results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, and there is a button to email the estimate to yourself.

A 19 by 13 courtyard, bedded and swept

Take a hypothetical courtyard, 19 ft by 13 ft, open on all four sides, so the base and bedding footprint is 20 ft by 14 ft.

• Bedding area: 20 x 14 = 280 square feet
• Cubic feet at 1 inch: 280 x 1 / 12 = 23.33
• Cubic yards: 23.33 / 27 = 0.86
• Tons: 0.86 x 1.35 = 1.17, or 1.22 with the five percent on

Order 1.5 tons of Mason Sand and there is a margin for the screed rails and the wheelbarrow.

The joints are the other calculation, and they run off the paved 247 square feet rather than the base footprint: 4 to 7 bags at standard joint width, or 8 to 13 if the gaps are wide. Under both of those sits the compacted stone layer, four or more tons on a courtyard this size, ordered separately.

Screed the bed to a true inch using rails or pipe, fill the tracks as you set pavers, and stay off it once it is screeded. Work from the pavers already laid. Lay onto loose bedding and compact the finished surface so the pavers settle into it, rather than compacting the sand first.

The bag you hold back for the second sweep

Bedding is easy to judge: measure it, add the five percent, round to the next half ton. Joints are the ones people under-buy, because the first sweep is never the last. Water the patio and the joints drop a quarter inch, and they want topping before you are finished. Keep at least one spare bag from the original order rather than matching a color six months later.

After that, the thing that empties joints here is runoff. A downpour that sheets across a patio instead of draining off it will strip plain sand out of the gaps in one afternoon, and it will keep doing it. If joint sand keeps vanishing from the same run of pavers, the fix is upstream: check the fall, check where the downspouts discharge, and get the water away from the surface before you refill anything.

Coarse and angular, not fine and round

Bedding needs coarse angular grains that lock together under load. Mason sand and Washed Sand are both in that family, and Stone Screenings make a firmer bed again, with less room to nudge a paver while you level it. Pick one and use it across the whole area. Play sand is not: it is fine and rounded, it rolls under pressure, and pavers set on it rock within a season. The shared word on the bag does not make it the same product.

For joints, plain mason sand is quick to sweep and usually wants topping up every season or two. Polymeric sand sets once wetted, resists ants and washout, and suits sloped runs, drives and anything that takes traffic, but it needs a dry install and a dry patio, so watch the forecast before you open a bag. Either way, bedding stays plain coarse sand. Polymeric belongs in the gaps only.

Email the estimate, open the product page, set the tonnage and a date, and give the ZIP at checkout, which is where delivery is arranged. Ask for the drop somewhere you can tarp it, because sand that has taken a storm is too wet to screed properly and has to sit and dry first.

Common questions

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