Sand Calculator: Mason or Washed, and How Deep It Goes
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Sand work here piles into the same few months. The pool goes up once the nights stop freezing, the sandbox gets refilled before school is out, the block wall waits for a dry week, and the lawn leveling happens in the narrow stretch when the clay has drained but the grass is still growing. That leaves one decision worth getting right before any of it starts, and the sand calculator only answers half of it: it will give you yards and tons, but you have to choose which of the two sands you are buying and how deep it goes.
Sand Jobs Ohio Packs Into the Warm Months
Depth is where these jobs differ, far more than area:
| Job | Sand | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Paver bedding, screeded | coarse washed sand | 1 inch and no more |
| Above-ground pool base | mason sand | 2 inches, screeded flat |
| Sandbox | washed sand | 6 inches |
| Lawn leveling on clay | washed sand, blended in | 1/4 to 1/2 inch per pass |
| Mortar and site-mixed concrete | mason sand for mortar, washed for concrete | by the mix ratio, not by depth |
A pool base is the unforgiving one. It has to be flat, screeded and free of stones, because anything sharp under a liner is a problem you discover with water in it. A sandbox is the opposite: depth is generous and the only real requirement is that the material is washed and screened.
Getting a Round Pool Ring and a Square Box Onto Paper
Measure in feet, and measure the thing that will actually hold sand rather than the outside of the frame. A pool ring is a diameter, taken across the middle at the level the sand will sit. A sandbox is an inside length and an inside width, taken at the timbers, which on a home-built box is usually three inches less each way than the lumber suggests.
Lawn areas are the awkward ones, because they are never square. Square them off to the rectangle that contains the section you are treating and accept the surplus, or break the lawn into two or three rectangles and enter each one.
Circle Mode, Rectangle Mode, and Five Patches at Once
Rectangle takes a length and a width in feet. Circle takes a diameter in feet, which is what makes it the right mode for a pool, a fire pit surround or a round play area. Multiple areas stacks up to five separate footprints and returns one total. One depth applies to the whole run, so group areas by depth: the box and the pool go in separate runs, and a patch of lawn at half an inch is a third.
Depth goes in as inches and will accept anything from 0.25 to 24, which covers a quarter-inch leveling pass at one end and a deep box at the other. Pick the material next so the tonnage is figured properly, and decide about the single optional control, a box adding 5 percent for compaction and spillage. The results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet together, and the panel will email them.
What 2,700 Pounds a Cubic Yard Covers at Each Depth
Both sands are published at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons, so the material choice changes what the sand does and not what it weighs. Area in square feet, times depth in inches divided by 12, gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for yards, multiply by 1.35 for tons.
| Depth | One cubic yard covers | One ton covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 inch | 324 sq ft | about 240 sq ft |
| 2 inches | 162 sq ft | about 120 sq ft |
| 3 inches | 108 sq ft | about 80 sq ft |
| 6 inches | 54 sq ft | about 40 sq ft |
Order on the published figure regardless, because rain changes the shovel and not the volume of the hole you are filling.
A Box, a Pool Base and a Leveling Pass Over Clay
Three worked examples with invented dimensions.
A 6 by 10 foot sandbox at 6 inches. Area 60 square feet. Volume is 60 x (6 / 12) = 30 cubic feet, which is 30 / 27 = 1.11 cubic yards, and at 1.35 that is 1.5 tons of washed sand.
A 17 foot round pool at 2 inches. Circle mode, diameter 17 feet, area 227.0 square feet. Volume is 227.0 x (2 / 12) = 37.8 cubic feet, which is 1.40 cubic yards and 1.9 tons of mason sand. Screed it level before the liner goes anywhere near it.
A 900 square foot leveling pass at half an inch. Volume is 900 x (0.5 / 12) = 37.5 cubic feet, which is 1.39 cubic yards and 1.9 tons. Work it into the surface rather than leaving it as a layer. Straight sand sitting on top of Ohio clay makes a boundary that roots stop at and water sits on, which is the opposite of what the job was for.
Where the Paver Bedding Inch Leaves This Page
Bedding under pavers is one inch, screeded, and it is the layer people most often over-order. That job has its own tool, the paver sand calculator, and the compacted stone beneath it belongs on the paver base calculator. What stays here is everything sold loose by the ton for boxes, pool bases, mixes and leveling. For joint sweeping after the pavers are down, screenings or a bagged polymeric product does the work, not a bulk sand order.
For site mixing, sand is measured by ratio rather than depth. A common 3:2:1 concrete proportion of stone, sand and cement uses roughly a ton of sand to 7 or 8 bags of cement, and mortar for a wall of about 100 block takes around a third of a ton of mason sand. Size the stone half of that mix on the stone calculator.
Tarping the Heap and Ordering a Touch Long
The 5 percent box covers spillage and what stays behind in the heap, and it is worth ticking on any job being moved by shovel. It does not cover a bed you decide to make deeper halfway through, so settle the depth before you order.
Have the sand tipped in the week you plan to use it, and tarp the heap. A pile left through a wet Ohio spring is heavier on every shovel, smears instead of screeding, and takes days to dry out. When the figure is settled, open the product page, set the quantity and choose a date. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the truck needs a firm spot with clear access to tip on.
Common questions
Stone underneath and sand on top. How do I keep the two orders straight?
Run the footprint twice and buy two products. Once at the compacted stone depth with the base material selected, then again at the sand depth at 1.35 tons per yard. Entering both depths as one number gives a total nobody can order from, and the two materials arrive as separate tips anyway.
The play area has a wavy border cut into the lawn. How do I size that?
Draw the smallest rectangle that swallows the whole shape and enter that, or split the area into two or three rectangles and use multiple areas. The surplus from squaring off a curve is small at sandbox depths and useful for topping up the corners, which is where a curved edge always runs thin.
Half the sandbox sand is still good. How do I measure what is missing?
Measure down from the top of the timbers to the sand at four or five points, and average what you find. That average is your depth, and the inside length and width stay the same. A box that has lost two inches across an 8 by 8 foot footprint needs about 0.4 of a yard, which is well under a ton and worth combining with another job.
I came up short with the pool half built. Now what?
Stop rather than spread thin. A pool base wants its full screeded depth across the whole ring, and pulling sand from the outer edge to finish the middle leaves the wall sitting low. Measure what is missing, order it as its own delivery, and keep the ring covered until it arrives.
How close does the tonnage come to what actually goes down?
Close, as long as the depth entered is the depth built. The arithmetic is exact; the variables are all on the ground. Sand compacts as it is screeded, a soft subgrade takes some of the first inch, and material blown or shoveled out of the way never makes it into the job. That is what the 5 percent is for, and on anything over a couple of tons it is worth rounding up beyond it.
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