Sand Calculator for Pool Rings, Play Boxes and Leveling Passes
Enter your project dimensions
Sand jobs in this state are decided by the forecast as much as by the tape. A pool ring has to be screeded dead flat, and a soaked pile will not screed; it smears, and it is heavier on every shovel. A lawn leveling pass wants the grass growing so it can come back through. The sand calculator above will turn a measured area into yards and tons in a second, so the part worth planning is which week the pile lands in and how deep the sand has to be when it does.
Damp clay in the Piedmont, loose sand on the Coastal Plain
The ground underneath changes the depth you enter more than the job name does. Over red clay that drains slowly, a pool base or a play box wants the subgrade level and firm before any sand goes down, because sand laid on a soft, wet spot will find that spot again by August. On the sandy ground of the Coastal Plain the problem reverses: water moves straight through, the base stays workable after rain, and the issue is a subgrade that shifts rather than one that holds water.
Lawn leveling is where this matters most. A quarter to a half inch of sand worked into the existing soil will settle a bumpy lawn. Sand poured on top of Piedmont clay and left as a layer does something else entirely, forming a barrier that roots do not cross, so mix it in rather than sheeting it over.
Entering a pool ring and a play box in the sand calculator
The form takes Rectangle, Circle or Multiple areas, with up to five areas totaled in one pass, which suits a yard where a box, a pad and a few bare patches are all being done on the same day. Length and width go in as feet; a round pool goes in as a Diameter in feet and the circle arithmetic is handled for you. Depth is in inches and the box accepts 0.25 to 24, which covers a half-inch leveling skim at one end and a deep box at the other.
Set the Material select so the weight is right, then decide on the tick marked "Add 5% extra for compaction & spillage". It is optional, and it is the only allowance the form offers. On a screeded layer it is worth leaving on, because sand is lost in the wheelbarrow and along the edges rather than in the middle. Press Calculate material needed and the result appears as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet at once. "Email my quote" sends you the figures with the measurements, which is the version worth keeping if the pool is not going up for another two weeks.
Twenty-seven hundred pounds a yard, and what rain does to that
Dry sand is figured at about 2,700 lb a cubic yard, or 1.35 tons, and that is the weight this site publishes for both mason and washed sand. Rain adds weight and no volume at all, so a wet load covers exactly the ground a dry one would. It changes the shovel, not the order. Cover the pile with a tarp if it has to sit, and a screeding job in particular is better booked into a dry stretch than rushed between showers.
Coverage comes out of the same figure. A cubic yard spreads over about 324 square feet at 1 inch, 162 at 2 inches, 108 at 3 and 54 at 6. Per ton, that is roughly 240 square feet at an inch and 120 at two.
A round pool, a sandbox and a bumpy back lawn, measured out
All three are illustrative rather than customer work.
A 28-foot round pool on 2 inches of mason sand: the area is 3.1416 x 14 x 14 = 615.8 square feet. 615.8 x 2 / 12 = 102.6 cubic feet. 102.6 / 27 = 3.80 cubic yards, which at 1.35 tons a yard is 5.13 tons, or 3.99 yards and 5.39 tons with the five percent ticked. Screed it flat and keep stones away from anything that touches the liner.
A sandbox 7 by 5 feet, filled 6 inches deep: 35 square feet, 35 x 6 / 12 = 17.5 cubic feet, 0.65 cubic yards, 0.88 tons. Washed sand is the one for a box, since the clay and silt have been rinsed out of it.
A leveling pass over 1,150 square feet of lawn at a half inch: 1,150 x 0.5 / 12 = 47.9 cubic feet, 1.77 cubic yards, 2.39 tons. Work it into the surface with the back of a rake rather than leaving it lying. If the lawn needs feeding as well as flattening, the growing material is a separate order sized in the topsoil calculator.
Fine or rinsed, and the patio job that starts on another page
Mason Sand is screened finer and is the choice where an even texture matters: mortar, joints, and the base under a pool liner. Washed Sand has had its clay and silt rinsed out and suits bedding, boxes and general mixes. They weigh the same by the yard, so switching between them changes the material on the ticket and not the arithmetic.
Bedding pavers is a separate errand. It is a 1-inch screeded course of coarse sand or screenings over a compacted base, with joint sand swept in afterwards, and the paver sand calculator handles the whole assembly including the base underneath. If you came here for a patio, start there instead. For mortar and site-mixed concrete, allow about a ton of sand for every seven to eight bags of cement and then follow your mix ratio; mason sand for mortar, washed sand where stone is going into the mix.
Booking the pile in before the next band of rain
Round up rather than down. Sand goes further than people expect on paper and shorter than they expect in practice, because the low corners of a pool pad and the edges of a box take more than the average depth suggests. Once you have the tonnage, browse the bulk materials, open the page for the sand you chose and set a quantity and a date there. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the truck needs clear access to somewhere the pile can go down on a tarp, close to the work and out of the path of the wheelbarrow. If the sand is going under a liner and you are unsure which grade suits, the contact page is a faster answer than a second delivery.
Common questions
The pool goes up on Saturday and the sand looks like it will be half a ton short. What now?
Stop before you screed. A pool base that is short ends up thin at one edge, and that edge is where the ring will settle. Spread what you have to the correct depth over part of the area, leave the rest bare, and finish the job with the top-up rather than stretching the sand thin across the whole ring.
How close is the figure on screen to what actually goes under the pool?
The arithmetic is exact for the numbers you enter. The gap comes from the ground: a subgrade that dips, a ring that is not quite round, and the sand lost screeding. Measure the diameter in two directions and take the larger, keep the five percent ticked, and the result will be close enough to order against.
Mason sand or washed sand once I have the tonnage. Which page do I open?
The tonnage is the same either way, so choose on texture. Mason sand for anything smooth or fine, including under a liner and in mortar. Washed sand for boxes, bedding and mixes. Set the quantity and the delivery date on that product's own page.
Where should the driver put a ton and a half of sand?
Somewhere flat, firm and close, with a tarp underneath. Sand spreads out as it lands and a pile that goes down on grass leaves a patch behind it. Keep it out of the route between the drop and the work, and if it will sit overnight, cover it, since a rained-on pile is much harder to screed.
The screen shows yards and tons together. Which one am I ordering against?
Yards tell you whether the hole or the ring is filled. Tons are what the truck is carrying and what the product is sold by, so the tonnage is the figure to take to the product page. They are the same quantity of sand described twice, connected by the 1.35 tons a yard above.
Related calculators
Two sands, one free truck.
Mason and washed sand by the ton, delivered free across North Carolina.
