Sand Calculator for Pool Bases, Sandboxes and Mixes
Enter your project dimensions
The job that brings most people here is a pool ring going up on ground that was never level to begin with, on a lawn cut into a slope like half the back yards in this state. That is worth saying first, because a sand estimate can only measure the layer you intend to finish with. It cannot see the hump you still have to cut out, or the low corner you are about to fill. Level the ground first, then bring the finished depth to the sand calculator and it will return cubic yards, tons and cubic feet.
What a sand estimate cannot see under a pool ring
Sand is not a grading material. Screeding two inches of it over a slope to fake a level pad puts the liner on a wedge that creeps as soon as the water goes in, and the tonnage you calculated will be wrong in both directions at once. Cut the high side down into the subsoil, compact any fill you add, and check the ring with a long board and a level before a grain of sand is ordered.
Take the measurement at the finished sand level, across the full circle of the ring rather than just the flat part you can see. That is the number the tool wants.
Ordered dry, delivered heavier after a wet week
Both figures on this site are dry ones. Mason and washed sand are published at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, or 1.35 tons per yard, and that is the material as sold. A yard soaked through is heavier. Rain changes what a shovelful feels like and how badly it clumps under a screed board; it does not change how much sand the hole holds, so size the order dry and keep a tarp over the pile.
Of the three results, cubic yards describe the size of the heap, tons are the unit sand is weighed and sold in, and cubic feet is the one to use against a wheelbarrow. At an inch deep a cubic yard spreads over roughly 324 sq ft and a ton over about 240; at six inches those fall to 54 and 40.
Screed depth, not dig depth, in the sand calculator
Three shapes are offered: rectangle, circle, and multiple areas, which holds up to five pieces and totals them. Length, width and diameter go in as feet, depth in inches anywhere from 0.25 to 24. Choose the material, tick the optional five percent for compaction and spillage, then calculate. Email my quote sends the result to yourself.
Example only. A 32 ft round above-ground pool bedded on 2 inches of Mason Sand.
- Area: 3.1416 x 16 x 16 = 804.2 sq ft
- Depth: 2 divided by 12 = 0.1667 ft
- Volume: 804.2 x 0.1667 = 134.0 cu ft
- Cubic yards: 134.0 divided by 27 = 4.96 yd3
- Tons at 1.35: 4.96 x 1.35 = 6.70 tons
- With the five percent ticked: 5.21 yd3, about 7.04 tons
Two inches under a liner, six in a play box
Depth is set by the job, not by preference. A pool base is 2 inches of mason sand screeded dead level, with nothing stony left where it can press into the liner. A sandbox is 6 inches of washed sand: a 6 by 8 ft box is 48 sq ft by 0.5 ft, which is 24 cu ft, 0.89 yd3 and about 1.2 tons. Leveling a lawn takes a quarter to half an inch worked into the turf, so 1,200 sq ft at a quarter inch is 25 cu ft, 0.93 yd3, and roughly 1.25 tons. Do not lay plain sand in a sheet over clay while doing it, or you build a layer that roots will not cross.
Where the sand is only the top layer, as on a court or a pit built over drainage stone, size the stone underneath separately in the stone calculator and come back here for the playing depth. Paver bedding is the exception that belongs elsewhere. It is a single inch of coarse sand screeded to grade, and it is sized on the paver sand calculator along with the joint sand that follows it. Anything deeper under pavers moves.
Mixing on site, and buying sand by weight instead of area
Mortar and concrete are not measured by area at all, so the depth box has nothing to work with. Rough it out by weight instead: a ton of sand goes with roughly 7 to 8 bags of cement in a typical mix, and mortar for a 100-block wall takes about a third of a ton of mason sand. Use Washed Sand in concrete, where the clay and silt have been rinsed out, and mason sand in mortar, where the finer, more even grain matters. Both weigh the same per yard, so the tool returns the same tonnage either way.
Ordering over on a material that blows and washes
Sand is the easiest material on this site to lose. It blows off a heap in a dry wind, washes down a slope in a summer storm, and every screeding job leaves a ridge that gets thrown away. Tick the five percent, and on a pool base add a little more on top of it, because a pad that comes up short at the last quarter of the circle cannot be topped up once the liner is down.
With the tonnage settled, open the product page for mason or washed sand, set the quantity and the date, and choose a tipping spot on firm ground where the pile can be tarped. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code and the truck needs clear access to that spot. Shapes that will not resolve into rectangles and circles can go through the contact page.
Common questions
The lawn falls away where the pool is going. Do I measure the slope or the level pad?
Measure the finished level pad, because that is what the sand fills. The fall is a grading job that happens before the sand arrives, and if you try to make it up in sand you will neither get a level pool nor a usable figure. Cut the high side down rather than filling the low side with sand.
The play area is an L around the corner of the deck. Can the tool total it?
Use multiple areas and enter the L as two rectangles that do not overlap. Run the long leg its full length, then start the short leg where the long one finishes, so the corner is only counted once. Five pieces can be entered and one total comes back.
Does the timber frame around the sandbox count in the area?
Measure the inside of the frame, since the sand only fills the opening. On a small box the difference is easy to dismiss, but timber on all four sides of an 8 ft box takes a noticeable bite out of the area, which at sandbox depth is worth a quarter ton.
A volleyball court needs stone underneath and sand on top. How do I order both?
As two passes through the tools, not one. Size the drainage layer of clean stone in the stone calculator at its own depth, then come back here and size the playing sand at the depth you want to dig your feet into. Each layer has its own weight per yard, so a single calculation cannot cover both.
The bed I am filling is a curved, free-form shape. What do I enter?
Break it into the largest rectangles that fit inside it, then add a circle for any rounded end, and enter them as separate areas. Rounding each piece up to the nearest half foot is usually closer than trying to average the whole shape, and sand is a material where a small surplus is easy to use.
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Two sands, one free truck.
Mason and washed sand by the ton, delivered free across Pennsylvania.
