Sand Calculator for Texas Bedding, Boxes and Pool Bases
Enter your project dimensions
Almost every sand order that goes wrong goes wrong on depth, not on area. Take two hypothetical jobs on the same suburban lot. A 24 by 11 foot walk being bedded for pavers is 264 square feet, which sounds like a lot of sand, but at the 1 inch a screed bed wants it comes to 22 cubic feet, 0.81 cubic yards and 1.10 tons. A sandbox 9 by 5 feet is only 45 square feet, small enough to step across, but filled to the 6 inches a box needs it comes to 22.5 cubic feet, 0.83 cubic yards and 1.13 tons. Nearly six times the footprint, and the same ton of sand.
Picking the depth before you touch the length and width
Depth on a sand job is set by what the layer has to do, and none of these are guesses.
| Job | Depth |
|---|---|
| Screed bed under pavers | 1 inch, no more |
| Above-ground pool base | 2 inches, leveled flat |
| Sandbox | 6 inches |
| Lawn leveling pass | a quarter to a half inch, worked in |
The one that catches people is the screed bed. A thicker bed feels safer and does the opposite, because pavers set on deep sand move under load later. On lawn leveling the rule runs the other way: a heavy sand blanket over the tight clay common through north and central Texas seals the surface and stops roots working down through it, so light passes worked into the soil beat one thick spread. A 1,200 square foot lawn at half an inch is 50 cubic feet, 1.85 cubic yards and 2.50 tons, and that is a season's worth in two or three passes rather than one.
Feeding it a round pool ring or a patio with a dogleg
Rectangle mode takes a length and a width in feet. Circle mode takes a diameter, which is the mode for a round pool base or a fire pit surround. Multiple areas mode holds up to five sections and totals them, so a patio that steps around a corner goes in as two or three clean rectangles rather than one averaged guess.
Depth accepts 0.25 to 24 inches, which is why the quarter-inch leveling pass is possible at all. Choose the material, decide about the box marked add 5% extra for compaction and spillage, and press calculate. The results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, and the Email my quote button sends the figures to you if you would rather not write them down.
What 2,700 pounds to the yard means once it is on the ground
This site puts mason and washed sand at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons to the yard, and both sands run the same figure, so switching between them does not change the estimate.
The arithmetic runs in one line. Square feet times depth in inches, divided by 12, gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards. Multiply by 1.35 for tons. Coverage falls out of the same numbers: a ton spread an inch thick covers roughly 240 square feet, about 120 at 2 inches, about 80 at 3 inches and about 40 at 6 inches.
Bagged sand is the same material in a worse container. A 50 lb bag holds about half a cubic foot, so 54 of them make a cubic yard, and one bag covers around 6 square feet at an inch. A 300 square foot bedding job is roughly 50 bags to lift twice, or one bulk order tipped where you want it.
Ordering a little long, and keeping the pile dry until you screed
Round up rather than down. Sand goes into hollows you did not know were there, some of it stays in the wheelbarrow, and a screed bed that runs out three courses from the end of a patio means lifting pavers you already set. A quarter ton over on a small job disappears into a sandbox top-up or the joints on a path. Ticking the 5 percent box is the easy version of the same insurance, and it is worth doing on anything you are compacting or screeding.
Where you put the pile matters more with sand than with stone. A soaked pile is heavier on every shovel and drags rather than screeds, and it will not level cleanly until it dries out. Tarp it if there is weather coming, and pick a drop spot on something firm and close to the work, because sand left on grass leaves a scar. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the truck needs a clear place to tip and a clear way out.
Mason or washed, and the two layers this page does not size
Both sands are stocked and both weigh the same, so the choice is about texture rather than tonnage.
Mason Sand is finer and more even. It is the pick for mortar, for the swept joints on a paved surface, and for a pool base, because it screeds to a flat plane with nothing sharp left near a liner. Washed Sand has had its clay and silt rinsed out, which makes it the one for sandboxes, bedding and general mixes, and the one to use in site-mixed concrete. For mortar and concrete work, a rough working guide is about a ton of sand to every 7 or 8 bags of cement, and a 100-block wall takes roughly a third of a ton of mason sand; check both against the mix design you are actually following.
Two layers fall outside this page. If you are laying pavers, the bedding course and the joint sweep are a pair, and the paver sand calculator handles both together. The compacted material underneath them is a different order again, sized on the paver base calculator. Where a specification calls for stone screenings instead of sand for the bed, take that to the stone calculator, which carries its own weight. Once you have a tonnage here, open the product page, set a quantity and a date, and give the delivery ZIP at checkout.
Common questions
Why does the result give both a yardage and a tonnage?
You measured a volume, so cubic yards describe the space the sand fills. The site sells sand by weight, so tons are what you order against. One number is the hole and the other is the load, and at 1.35 tons per cubic yard they describe the same sand.
Do I enter the depth before or after I tamp the bed?
Enter the finished depth you want under the pavers or in the box. A screed bed is leveled rather than compacted, so on that job the two are effectively the same. For a sandbox or pool base, sand consolidates a little when it is wetted and walked on, which is what the 5 percent option covers.
My pool is round. How do I get a base quantity for it?
Switch to circle mode and enter the diameter in feet, not the radius. A 12 foot round pool at the 2 inches of mason sand a liner wants is about 113 square feet, 18.85 cubic feet, 0.70 cubic yards and 0.94 tons. A tree ring or fire pit surround works the same way.
Can I confirm the number with a calculator on my phone?
Yes. Multiply length by width, multiply that by the depth in inches, divide by 12, and you have cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards, then multiply by 1.35. For a circle, area is 3.14 times half the diameter, squared.
The patio next door used the same depth but needed different tons. Why?
Because the materials weigh different amounts per cubic yard. Sand is about 2,700 lb, crushed stone runs near 2,800, and a base blend with fines in it reaches 3,000. Volume comes from your measurements and is identical, but the weight the truck brings is set by the material you picked in the dropdown.
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