Loona Construction Calculators
Buying lumber by the board foot (or checking a metric timber order)? Enter the thickness, width and length of your pieces and how many you need — in inches and feet, or millimetres and metres — and get the total board feet and the volume in cubic metres.
A board foot is a volume unit for lumber: a board 12 in wide, 12 in long and 1 in thick — 144 cubic inches. Wider, thicker or longer pieces contain proportionally more board feet, and lumber is often priced per board foot.
A dressed (planed) 2 × 4 actually measures about 1.5 × 3.5 in — the name is the rough size before drying and planing. Board-foot pricing conventionally uses the nominal size; enter the nominal size to match a price list, or the actual size for true volume.
About 423.8 board feet of true volume. The cubic-metre figure this calculator shows uses the same dimensions you entered, so the two results always agree with each other.
Board feet = (Thickness in inches × Width in inches × Length in inches) ÷ 144 × Pieces
One board foot is a piece of wood 1 ft × 1 ft × 1 in — 144 cubic inches. Metric inputs are converted exactly (1 in = 25.4 mm) before the same formula is applied, and the true volume in cubic metres is shown alongside.
Yes — switch to Metric and enter thickness and width in centimetres and length in metres. Roofing battens, for example: 5 × 2.5 cm × 4 m pieces calculate directly.
Multiply total board feet by the price per board foot quoted by the yard. Add 10–15% extra pieces for cuts, defects and grading losses — lumber yards expect you to sort, and some boards will not be usable.
Plywood and boards are sold by the sheet, not the board foot. A 4 × 8 ft sheet is 32 ft²; divide your area by that (or use the Drywall Calculator, which counts sheets for walls and ceilings).
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