Paver Sand Calculator: The Inch Underneath and the Bags Between
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Two paver jobs on the same lake property, both wanting sand, and the orders look nothing alike. A forty-foot walk down to the steps needs under a ton of bedding and about three bags for its joints. A twenty by thirteen terrace off the back door needs a ton and a quarter of bedding and roughly twice the bags. One is a delivery, the other fits in a trunk, and the paver sand calculator only sizes the first of them. That split is the thing to get straight before you type anything.
The depth field holds at one inch, whatever the base did
Bedding is a screeded inch. Not an inch and a half because the base came out low, not two inches to save a lift of stone. Sand deeper than an inch moves under load, and a patio that rocks two winters later almost always has too much sand under it rather than too little.
If the base is uneven, fix the base. Depth belongs to traffic bond and gets sized on the paver base calculator.
Checklist before the form:
- Set the depth box to 1 and leave it there.
- Screed against pipes or rails, then lift them and fill the channels as you go.
- Leave the bed loose. Compaction happens through the pavers, not before them.
- Work forward off pavers already laid so you never walk the screeded bed.
The bedding reaches as far out as the stone does
The bedding runs out to the same six inches past every open edge that the base does, because the edge restraint sits on bedded stone. So the area you enter here is the base area, and on a small terrace that skirt is most of the difference between a full pallet of work and a short one.
- Shape. Rectangle, circle, or multiple areas up to five, which covers a terrace with a landing off one corner.
- Size. Length and width in feet, or a diameter for a round landing.
- Depth. Inches. For this job, one.
- Material. The select list, which sets the weight.
- Extra. The five percent tick for compaction and spillage.
- Result. Cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, with the emailed quote.
About 2,700 pounds a yard, and an inch of it covers roughly 320 square feet
Mason and washed sand publish here at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons. Since a cubic yard is twenty-seven cubic feet, spreading it one inch thick stretches it over something close to 320 square feet, so most patios on a residential lot come in under a ton and a half.
That is also why the tonnage differs from the stone above and below it. Same footprint, same inch, but base stone carries about 3,000 lb to the yard and Screenings about 2,900, so each material returns its own weight from identical measurements. To check the bedding by hand: area divided by twelve gives cubic feet at one inch, divide by twenty-seven for yards, then multiply by 1.35.
Two jobs, run through the form
Hypothetical, on a hypothetical lot.
Forty feet of walk down to the lake steps
Four feet wide, lawn on both sides and open at the top end, with the steps closing the bottom, so the base and bedding footprint is 40.5 by 5 feet.
- 40.5 x 5 = 202.5 square feet
- 202.5 divided by 12 = 16.88 cubic feet at one inch
- 16.88 divided by 27 = 0.63 cubic yards
- 0.63 x 1.35 = 0.84 tons
A 20 by 13 terrace against the house
Closed on the twenty-foot side, so the footprint is 21 by 13.5 feet.
- 21 x 13.5 = 283.5 square feet
- 283.5 divided by 12 = 23.63 cubic feet
- 23.63 divided by 27 = 0.88 cubic yards
- 0.88 x 1.35 = 1.18 tons
Order two and a quarter tons and take both jobs off one load. Joints are counted separately, off the paved area rather than the footprint: 160 square feet of walk takes two to four bags at fifty pounds, and 260 square feet of terrace takes four to seven, for joints in the usual eighth to quarter inch range. Wider joints or thicker pavers can halve a bag's coverage, so follow the label and buy one spare. Joint bags come from a garden center or a landscape yard locally; the bulk material ordered here is the bedding sand.
Running out mid-screed is the one failure with no recovery
A screeded bed is not something you can leave half done and come back to on Saturday. Tick the five percent, then round up. The overshoot on a job this size is small, and sand that stays behind goes into the joints, under a step landing, or into the next project.
Keep the pile covered. Damp sand screeds beautifully and soaked sand does not screed at all, which on a lake lot in a wet week decides whether you work.
Mason sand, washed sand or Screenings, and which tool sizes each
- Mason sand: coarse and angular, the usual bedding choice, and the same material that fills joints when polymeric is not wanted.
- Washed sand: concrete-grade, also used for leveling and bedding under slabs.
- Screenings: a firmer setting layer than sand, with less room to level as you go. Some installers here prefer it; keep the choice consistent across the whole area rather than switching partway.
- Play sand: rounded, and it rolls under load. Not for either layer.
Use this page when the depth is the fixed bedding inch. Use the general sand calculator when you are buying sand at some other depth: leveling, backfill, bedding under a slab, or a sandbox.
Joints after a freeze-thaw winter, counted in bags
Frost cycling, snowmelt running across a terrace and a leaf blower held too close all empty joints. Plain mason sand wants a fresh sweep every season or two. Polymeric holds far longer but has to go in bone dry and be watered on schedule, so it wants a settled dry day, which in spring here means waiting rather than guessing.
Sweep dry material in, compact, mist, then check the joints again after the first heavy rain and top up the ones that dropped. When the bedding tonnage is settled, set the quantity and date at checkout, where delivery is arranged by ZIP code; the delivery page covers access. Anything you want a second look at can go to the contact page with the patio dimensions.
Common questions
Part of the terrace is a round landing at the bottom of the steps. How do I size that?
Switch that piece to circle mode and enter its diameter in feet, then add the rectangle of the terrace as a second area. Remember the landing gets the same six-inch skirt as everything else, so measure the base circle rather than the paver circle.
Can I check the bedding tonnage without the tool?
Yes, and it is worth doing once. Divide the footprint in square feet by twelve, which is the cubic feet at a one-inch depth, divide that by twenty-seven for cubic yards, and multiply by 1.35 for tons. A three-hundred square foot patio should land close to 1.25 tons, and if your figure is wildly off, the depth box is not on 1.
The same inch gives a different tonnage for sand than for base stone. Which one is wrong?
Neither. The tool applies the weight of whatever material is selected, and a yard of coarse sand is about 2,700 lb where a yard of base stone is about 3,000. Identical measurements will always return identical cubic yards and different tons, which is exactly what you want when you are buying two materials for one patio.
Is the five percent enough of a cushion for a bedding course?
For a straightforward rectangle it usually is. Add more of your own on anything with lots of cut edges, a curved front or several small areas, because spillage comes off the ends of a screed and an irregular shape has far more ends. A quarter ton over is a sensible margin on any patio worth screeding.
The terrace falls away toward the water. Does the slope change the sand order?
Barely. The two to three percent fall a patio should have is built into the base, and the bedding stays a uniform inch over it, so the extra surface length is a fraction of a percent. Measure along the slope if you like, but do not add depth to chase the grade.
Related calculators
One ton of bedding beats 25 bags.
Mason and washed sand delivered free; keep the bags for the polymeric sweep.