Paver Sand Calculator: The Bedding Inch, Priced in Tons
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On the old weathered uplands around Cincinnati and Clermont County, and on the till flats further north, there is a dense subsoil a foot or two down that water perches on instead of draining through. Everything laid above it stays damp longer than it should. That is the condition a paver patio has to survive, and it is why the two ways a paver sand calculator gets misused are both about depth rather than area.
Where a Sand Order Misses Before the First Paver Goes Down
Short, because the base overhang was left out. Bedding covers the base, and the base runs 6 inches past every open edge of the paving so the edge restraint has something to spike into. Measure the pavers only and you order sand for the middle and screed the border out of what is left.
Long, and worse, because somebody screeded two inches. A 1 inch bed doubled to 2 looks like insurance and behaves like a liability. Sand that deep migrates under load, and on ground that holds water into spring, freeze-thaw pumps it sideways until the pavers rock. Extra depth belongs in the stone below, sized on the paver base calculator. The sand layer is 1 inch, flat, every time.
There is a third way the number comes out wrong, which is counting joint sand in tons. Joints are a bag question, and the gap between the two is roughly ten to one.
What the Paver Sand Calculator Sizes, and What It Does Not
The form is short. Pick a rectangle, a circle, or up to five areas added together. Length and width in feet, diameter in feet, depth in inches anywhere from 0.25 to 24. Choose the material so the weight matches, tick the box that adds 5 percent for compaction and spillage, and press calculate. Back come cubic yards, tons and cubic feet at once, with an email option on the results panel.
For bedding, the depth entry is 1. Not 1.5, not 2. The area is the paved surface plus the base's 6 inch overhang.
For joints, do not use the depth field at all. A 50 lb bag covers 40 to 75 sq ft of standard 1/8 to 1/4 inch joints, so a patio is a handful of bags, and wider joints or thicker pavers can halve that coverage. Read the label on whatever you buy and add one bag over the count. The bags are a local errand, picked up at a home center, and sit outside the bulk order entirely.
| Paved area | Standard joints, 1/8 to 1/4 inch | Wide joints, 3/8 inch and up |
|---|---|---|
| 100 sq ft | 2 to 3 bags | 3 to 5 bags |
| 200 sq ft | 3 to 5 bags | 6 to 10 bags |
| 300 sq ft | 4 to 8 bags | 8 to 15 bags |
| 500 sq ft | 7 to 13 bags | 14 to 25 bags |
What 2,700 Pounds a Yard Covers at One Inch
Coarse sand runs about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons. Spread at 1 inch, a single cubic yard goes a long way: 27 cubic feet divided by 1/12 of a foot covers 324 sq ft. That works out at 0.42 tons per 100 sq ft, which is the number to sanity-check any bedding order against.
The arithmetic behind the tons line is the same as everywhere on this site. Area in square feet, times depth in inches divided by 12, gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards. Multiply by the weight of that material. At 1.35, sand is lighter per yard than the 1.50 of the stone beneath it and heavier than the 1.10 of topsoil, which is exactly why the calculator asks which material before it gives you tons.
Mason Sand, Washed Sand, or Screenings Under the Pavers
The grain shape matters more than the name.
- Mason Sand is the usual bedding choice here: coarse and angular, so the grains lock rather than roll.
- Washed Sand, the concrete-grade material, does the same job and screeds cleanly.
- Screenings make a firmer bed that holds its shape better on a clay-ground patio, at 1.45 tons per cubic yard. The trade is that they give you less room to nudge a paver level once it is set.
- Play sand is not an option. Fine rounded grains roll under load, work out of joints and let pavers shift.
Whichever you pick, use it across the whole surface. A patio bedded half on sand and half on screenings settles at two different rates. And keep the material for the joints separate from the material for the bed: plain coarse sand goes underneath, and anything polymeric belongs only in the joints, swept in bone dry.
A note on the sibling tool: the sand calculator handles sand at any depth for bedding pipe, leveling under a slab, backfill or a sandbox. This page is locked to the one job where the depth is not yours to choose.
A Garden Walk and a Fire-Pit Circle, Figured Separately
Two hypothetical jobs, both at the 1 inch bedding depth.
A 40 by 4 ft garden walk. Paved area is 160 sq ft. Add 6 inches of base overhang on both long edges and both ends and the bedding footprint is 41 x 5 = 205 sq ft. Volume is 205 x (1 ÷ 12) = 17.1 cubic feet, which is 17.1 ÷ 27 = 0.63 cubic yards, and at 1.35 that is 0.85 tons. Round to 1. Joints over 160 sq ft take 3 to 4 bags.
A 13 ft seating circle around a fire ring. The paved circle is 133 sq ft. With the overhang the base circle is 14 ft across, or 154 sq ft. Volume is 154 x (1 ÷ 12) = 12.8 cubic feet, or 0.48 cubic yards, which is 0.64 tons. Round to 0.75. Joints over 133 sq ft take 2 to 4 bags.
Under both of them sits a compacted course of 411 Stone, which is a separate order at a separate weight. Keep the sand heap tarped between delivery and screeding: sand that is damp to dry screeds off the rails cleanly, and sand that has taken two days of Ohio rain does not screed at all. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the truck needs clear access to a firm tipping spot, so raise anything awkward about the approach on the contact page first. Set pavers on an uncompacted bed and compact the finished surface to seat them, then sweep the joints, compact again and mist.
Common questions
Is the 1 inch loose or after compaction?
Screed it loose at 1 inch and leave it alone. Nothing rolls the bed before the pavers go on; the plate compactor runs over the finished surface and seats each paver into the sand from above. That is why walking on a screeded bed ruins it, and why you work forward off the pavers already laid rather than back across the sand.
How do I size a fire-pit circle or a tree surround?
Use circle mode and enter the diameter across the widest point in feet, adding a foot to account for the base overhang, since 6 inches on each side adds a full foot to a diameter. For the ring left open in the middle, subtract that circle's area by hand or leave it in and take the small surplus, which on a 1 inch layer is a few hundred pounds at most.
How do I check the tonnage with a pencil?
Multiply the square footage by 1 inch divided by 12, divide by 27, then multiply by 1.35. Quicker still, divide the area by 324 to get cubic yards straight out, since that is what one yard covers at an inch. A 300 sq ft patio is 0.93 yards and 1.25 tons either way.
Same patio, same 1 inch, so why does sand come out lighter than the base stone?
Because tons follow weight, not volume. A cubic yard of coarse sand is about 2,700 lb and a cubic yard of the crushed course under it is about 3,000, so identical measurements return different tonnages. The cubic yards line will match. The tons line is the one the product page charges in, which is why you pick the material before you read it.
Is the 5 percent box worth ticking on a bedding order?
On a small patio, yes, because a bedding order is fractions of a ton and the losses are real: sand left in the wheelbarrow, the rails pulled out, the strip you screed twice after kneeling in it. It is not a substitute for a margin on the area, though. If the base overhang is uncertain, add the area rather than leaning on the box.
Related calculators
One ton of bedding beats 25 bags.
Mason and washed sand delivered free; keep the bags for the polymeric sweep.