Sand Calculator for Pool Rings, Sandboxes and Low Lawns

Sand is the material that gets ordered wrong most often on an older Connecticut lot, and almost always in the same two directions. Someone orders for a level pad that is not level, because the ground drops four inches across the back yard and nobody checked. Or they order for a six inch box and find the bottom is glacial till with a rock in it that will not let the last two inches happen. This sand calculator gets the volume right; the paragraphs below are about the measurements you feed it.

Four ways a sand order lands short or long

Depth is the first one. A pad is only as flat as the ground under it, and if you take one reading at the high corner and order from it, a yard of sand disappears into the low side without covering anything.

Diameter is the second. A round pool, a fire ring or a stock tank measured across a chord rather than across the true center reads small, and the area error is squared. Pull the tape across the widest point you can find, twice, at right angles.

Settling is the third. Sand placed loose and then screeded or wetted drops perceptibly, and on a two inch layer that is most of an inch.

Rain is the fourth, and it works the other way. A pile soaked by a nor'easter weighs more per shovel but has not changed its volume, so the order does not change. It only gets harder to move.

Round pools, square boxes, five low spots at once

Rectangle covers a box, a pad or a strip. Circle handles a round pool or ring and is entered on the full diameter across, so the tool works out the area rather than you doing it. Multiple areas holds up to five shapes, which is enough for a scattering of low spots in a lawn that are all getting the same treatment.

Length, width and diameter go in as feet. Depth goes in as inches, from 0.25 up to 24, which is why a half inch leveling pass and a six inch sandbox both fit the same field. Pick the material so the ton figure is weighted correctly, leave the 5% box for compaction and spillage ticked if you want a margin on the order, and press calculate.

You get cubic yards, tons and cubic feet back, plus the option to email the estimate to yourself.

A yard weighs 2,700 lb dry, and more after a wet week

The tool works in two moves. Length times width times depth in inches divided by 12 gives cubic feet, and cubic feet divided by 27 gives cubic yards. Tons are cubic yards multiplied by the published weight, and this site lists mason and washed sand at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, or 1.35 tons.

Saturated sand is heavier than that, which shows up in the wheelbarrow rather than on the order, because you are buying a volume of material to fill a space of a known size. Coverage at common depths:

Sand sits at the light end of the aggregates here. Crushed stone runs 2,800 lb a yard and processed gravel about 3,000, so a pad that takes four tons of base takes noticeably less sand at the same depth. Sizing a base under the sand is its own calculation at that heavier figure.

Which of the two sands screeds flat under a liner

Mason sand is screened finer and more evenly. It screeds dead flat, which is why it goes under an above ground pool liner and into mortar work.

Washed sand has been rinsed of clay and silt. It suits a sandbox, general mixes and bedding where cleanliness matters more than a fine even grain. Both weigh the same per yard, so the tonnage does not change when you switch between them; only the finish does.

What this page does not size is the bedding course under pavers. That is a strict one inch layer with joint sand counted separately, and the paver sand calculator handles both, along with the question of whether stone dust under flatwork is the better bed on this ground.

Three jobs on one property, worked right through

Illustrations, not customer jobs.

Above ground pool base at 2 inches

A 15 foot round pool, entered in circle mode on the diameter, with 2 inches of mason sand.

• Area: 3.1416 x 7.5 x 7.5 = 176.7 sq ft
• 176.7 x 2 / 12 = 29.5 cu ft
• 29.5 / 27 = 1.09 cu yd
• 1.09 x 1.35 = 1.47 tons, so call it 1.5 tons

Screed it flat and keep stone and screenings away from the liner.

Sandbox at 8 inches

A 6 by 6 foot box filled 8 inches deep with washed sand.

• 6 x 6 = 36 sq ft
• 36 x 8 / 12 = 24 cu ft
• 24 / 27 = 0.89 cu yd
• 0.89 x 1.35 = 1.20 tons

Leveling a bumpy back lawn

Twelve hundred square feet at a half inch, worked into the surface rather than laid on it.

• 1,200 x 0.5 / 12 = 50 cu ft
• 50 / 27 = 1.85 cu yd
• 1.85 x 1.35 = 2.50 tons

Spread that in two passes across a season rather than one heavy one, and mix it into the top of the soil instead of leaving a clean band of sand sitting over till, which will hold water rather than drain it.

Where two tons of sand can sit for a week

Sand needs a drop spot you can work from, and on an older property that is rarely where the job is. Pick a firm, flat place the truck can reach and tip on, ideally within wheelbarrow distance of the work and off the lawn, since a wet pile will print into turf and kill it in three days.

Tarp underneath if the pile is going on a finished drive, and tarp over the top if the forecast is against you. Then order the quantity on the product page, choosing the date there. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code and the truck needs clear access to the spot you picked, which is what how bulk delivery works sets out.

Common questions

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