Construction material calculators
How much do you actually need? Enter your dimensions and get a quantity you can take to the counter: yards of concrete, tiles and bags of grout, drywall sheets and buckets of mud, fence posts, squares of shingles, tons of gravel, yards of mulch. Imperial units, no sign-up, no form to fill in.
- Every formula written out on the page, step by step
- Coverage rates cited to the manufacturer that publishes them
- Waste allowances you can change, because your job site is not average
- Opens fast on a phone with one bar of signal
Pick a calculator
- Concrete Calculator Cubic yards and bags for a slab, a footing, a round column or a flight of steps, with the allowance applied and the weight you will be carrying. Slabs and footings
- Tile Calculator Tile count with a cutting allowance, boxes to buy, bags of thin-set by trowel size, and grout by the pound for any tile size and joint width. Floors and walls
- Drywall Calculator Sheets for 4x8, 4x10 and 4x12 panels from room dimensions, with doors and windows deducted, plus screws, joint compound and tape. Walls and ceilings
- Fence Calculator Posts, rails and pickets from your run length, plus the hole size and the bags of concrete each post takes. Outdoor
- Roofing Calculator Squares and shingle bundles from your footprint and roof pitch, with the pitch multiplier shown, plus underlayment and ridge cap. Outdoor
- Gravel Calculator Cubic yards and tons of stone for driveways, paths and paver base, with a compaction allowance and a density you can set. Outdoor
- Mulch Calculator Cubic yards and bags for beds and tree rings at the depth you choose, with the bags-versus-bulk crossover explained. Garden
What you get on every page
The calculator comes first, then the arithmetic behind it, written out step by step. Each page states the coverage rate it used and links to the manufacturer that published it, so you can check the figure against the bag you are actually buying. The assumptions that vary from job to job are yours to change: waste percentage, trowel notch, grout joint width, post spacing, hole depth.
What we assume, on every page
- Quantities round up, always. Materials are sold in whole tiles, whole sheets and whole bags. Half a bag of grout does not exist at the counter.
- Waste is a real cost, not padding. The default allowance is 10 % for straightforward work and 15 % where every perimeter piece is cut twice. Both are editable.
- Coverage rates come from manufacturers. Each one is named and linked. Where a rate varies by product, the page says so and tells you to read your bag.
- The result is an estimate. A calculator has never seen your substrate, your frost line or your framing. Confirm before ordering.
Built for the job site, not the office
These pages open quickly on a phone, outdoors, on a weak connection, while you are standing in an aisle deciding how many boxes to load. Input fields are sized to stay usable with work gloves on, results are readable at arm's length, and the numbers are set so that columns line up when you compare them.
There is no form anywhere on this site. We do not ask for your name, your email, your phone number or your address, and we do not sell leads to contractors. Some links to suppliers earn a commission if you buy through them, which is stated on the page where the link appears.
Quick reference: the conversions everything depends on
| Conversion | Value | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Cubic feet in a cubic yard | 27 | Anything sold by the yard |
| Square inches in a square foot | 144 | Tile, grout |
| Inches in a foot | 12 | Thickness, depth |
| Yield of an 80 lb bag of concrete mix | 0.6 cu ft | Post holes, footings |
| Yield of a 60 lb bag of concrete mix | 0.45 cu ft | Post holes, footings |
| Area of a 4 ft x 8 ft drywall sheet | 32 sq ft | Walls, ceilings |
The single most common estimating error in residential work is forgetting that thickness is in inches while length and width are in feet. Divide the inches by 12 before you multiply, every time.