Sand Calculator for Boxes, Pool Bases and Leveling
Enter your project dimensions
Most sand jobs come with their own measuring tape already in place. There is a timber frame with four sides, a pool ring pegged out on flat ground in Hampton Roads, or a strip of thin lawn beside a walk on Piedmont clay. Read the numbers off what is in front of you, then decide the depth, because on sand the depth is the figure that moves the order.
Frames, rings and strips, and where to put the tape
Decision criterion: what is holding the sand in?
- A built frame, such as a sandbox or a play pit. Measure the inside faces, not the outside of the boards. On a 6 by 9 ft box, the boards take several square feet off the total.
- A pegged ring, such as the base for an above-ground pool. Measure the diameter across the middle twice, at right angles, and take the larger reading. Rings pull oval as they are set out.
- An open strip, such as a leveling pass over a lawn or a bedding run beside a path. Pace the length, take the width at three points and enter the average.
Where the sand is going into an excavation rather than onto the surface, measure the depth from a string line at finished level rather than from the ground beside it. On low coastal lots the ground beside the hole is rarely the level you are aiming at.
Getting those readings into the form
The shape row is the first decision. Rectangle takes a length and a width in feet, which covers frames and strips. Circle takes a diameter in feet, which is what a pool base or a fire pit surround wants. Multiple areas accepts up to five entries at once, so two sandboxes and a leveling strip come back as one tonnage.
Depth (inches) runs from 0.25 to 24. The quarter-inch end is not decoration on this page: a leveling pass over turf lives down there, and being able to enter 0.5 rather than rounding to 1 halves the order. The material select drives the weight conversion, the tick box adds 5 per cent for compaction and spillage unless you untick it, and the results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, with Email my quote sending them on.
Depth by job, from a quarter inch to a filled box
- Lawn leveling over clay: a quarter to a half inch per pass, worked into the turf. A solid sand layer over Piedmont clay makes a shelf that roots will not cross, so this is repeated thin passes rather than one deep one.
- Above-ground pool base: 2 inches of mason sand, screeded smooth, with anything stony picked out before the liner goes down.
- Sandbox or play pit: 6 to 8 inches of washed sand, which is enough for a child to dig in without hitting the bottom.
- Bedding under flatwork: an inch, screeded to grade. If that is a paver job, the paver sand calculator covers the bedding course and the joint fill together, which is the sequence that page is built around.
A pool ring, a thin pass over turf, and the box from the top of this page
Hypothetical jobs with the arithmetic shown.
A base pegged out at 29 ft across takes the circle shape. The area of a 29 ft circle is about 660 square feet. At 2 inches: 660 x 2 / 12 = 110 cubic feet. Divide by 27 and that is 4.07 cubic yards. Sand is published on this site at about 2,700 lb a cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons, so 4.07 x 1.35 gives 5.49 tons. Order 5.75 and keep the remainder for the low side, since a ring set on flat ground is never quite as flat as it looks.
A leveling pass over 800 square feet of thin back lawn at a half inch: 800 x 0.5 / 12 = 33.33 cubic feet, 1.23 cubic yards, 1.67 tons. That is a tonnage worth splitting across two passes a few weeks apart rather than laying in one go.
And the box that started this page: 6 by 9 ft inside the boards is 54 square feet, filled to 8 inches. 54 x 8 / 12 = 36 cubic feet, 1.33 cubic yards, 1.80 tons. Round to 2 tons and tarp what is left, because dry sand screeds and wet sand does not.
Reading 1.33 yards and 1.80 tons off the same line
They are one pile described twice. Cubic yards tell you what the frame holds and how much of the drive the delivery will occupy. Tons are the ordering unit, and they are what the tool converts to using the weight of the material you selected. Cubic feet suit the small end, where a 3 by 4 ft repair at 2 inches is 2 cubic feet and easier to picture that way.
Rain moves none of these figures. A soaked yard of sand can weigh a good deal more than a dry one, which changes what a shovel feels like rather than what the job takes, so calculate dry and cover the pile if it is going to sit.
Mason or washed sand, and where the two part company
Both convert at the same 1.35 tons a cubic yard, so the tonnage does not change with the choice.
- Mason Sand has the finer, more uniform grain. It screeds smooth, which is why it goes under pool liners, into brick and block work, and into paver joints.
- Washed Sand has had the clay and silt rinsed out of it. It is the one for sandbox fill, bedding and mixes, and the coarser grain is what makes it hold a screeded line under load.
Where the job is a base rather than a bedding layer, sand is not the material at all: that is 21A compacted in lifts, with the sand reserved for the thin course on top. Pipe runs and flatwork bedded in stone instead go through stone bedding sizes, and where a paved surface needs its joints filled the material is fine chips for joints rather than sand. When the tonnage is settled, open the product page, choose your quantity and date, and delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, with how delivery is arranged covering the access at the far end.
Common questions
Is the depth I enter the loose sand or the sand once it has settled?
Enter the finished depth you want to end up with. Sand placed loose and then screeded and watered gives up a small amount of its height, which is what the optional 5 per cent tick box is there for. On a pool base or a bedding course, where the finished level is the whole point, work to the finished figure and let the tick box cover the spillage.
How exact is this against what a sandbox or a pool ring actually swallows?
The volume is arithmetic and does not vary. What varies is the ground: soft spots take a little sand into themselves, and a ring pegged on uneven ground is deeper on one side than the tape suggests. Probe the depth in three or four places and enter the average rather than the reading at the middle.
Which product page should I be on once I have the tonnage?
Mason sand for anything that has to screed smooth under a liner or into a joint, washed sand for fill, bedding and mixes. Both carry the same weight per yard, so the figure the calculator returned holds whichever you open.
Where should the load go while I am working?
On firm ground close to the job, on a tarp if it is going on a drive, and clear of anything the truck cannot back past. Sand travels well by wheelbarrow but stains concrete and washes into drains in the first heavy rain, so a tarp under it and a sheet over it are worth the few minutes.
Why does the panel show tons and cubic yards at the same time?
Because you plan in one and order in the other. The yard figure tells you whether the frame or the excavation will take it. The ton figure is what goes on the order, converted at the published weight for the sand you selected, which is why the two never match each other on this page.
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