Sand Calculator: Pool Bases, Sandboxes and Lawn Leveling
Enter your project dimensions
The two jobs that send most Michigan yards looking for bulk sand both land in the same few weeks of spring, and neither of them is a rectangle. A pool that has been down since October goes back on a base that has to be screeded flat before the liner touches it. A sandbox that lost half its depth over the winter wants topping up before the weather is warm enough to sit in it. This sand calculator handles both, once each one has been turned into numbers the form will take.
A 30-foot circle, a 6-by-10 box and the shapes between them
Round pools are measured across, not around. Take the diameter at the widest point, over the ground the pool will actually stand on rather than over the frame, and add a foot each way so the base runs out past the wall. A 30-foot pool measured this way is a 30-foot circle, and the tool does the rest.
A sandbox is easier but easy to get wrong in one place: measure the inside of the frame. A box built from six-by-six timbers loses a foot of width if you measure the outside of the boards, and on a small box that is a fifth of the order.
Anything with a curved edge, a dogleg or a tree in the middle gets boxed in. Take the smallest rectangle that contains the shape, estimate what share of that box is genuinely being sanded, and scale the yardage down by that fraction.
Putting a circle into the sand calculator without working out pi
Three shapes are offered. Rectangle takes a length and a width. Circle takes a single diameter, which is what saves you doing the arithmetic on a round pool. Multiple areas totals up to five separate pieces in one calculation, so a sandbox and two low patches of lawn can come back as one figure.
Every horizontal measurement goes in feet. Depth goes in inches and the field runs from 0.25 to 24, which covers everything from a light leveling dressing to the bottom of a play box. Pick the material, then decide on the checkbox that adds 5 percent for compaction and spillage, which starts ticked and adds nothing if you untick it. The result comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet at once, and the estimate can be emailed rather than written down.
The 30-foot pool base, worked through at two inches of mason sand:
- circle of 30 feet across is about 706.9 square feet
- 706.9 x 2 / 12 = 117.8 cubic feet
- 117.8 / 27 = 4.36 cubic yards
- 4.36 x 1.35 = 5.89 tons
- with the allowance ticked: 4.58 cubic yards, 6.18 tons
Liner, play box, lawn: the depth moves far more than the sand does
Depth is set by the job, not estimated. Under an above-ground pool, two inches of mason sand screeded dead flat, with every stone and every screening kept off it, because a liner finds them. In a play box, six inches of washed sand, which a 6 by 10 frame turns into 30 cubic feet, 1.11 cubic yards and 1.5 tons. For leveling a lawn, a quarter to a half inch worked into the grass at a time, never enough to bury the blades.
Paver bedding is the job that does not belong on this page. It is one screeded inch and no more, and the assembly beneath it has its own depths, so send that one to the paver sand tool and keep this page for bulk sand at a depth you choose.
Why the tonnage does not change when the pile gets rained on
Square feet times depth in inches, divided by 12, gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards. Multiply by the material weight for tons, and for both sands on this site that figure is about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, or 1.35 tons dry. Soaked, the same yard is heavier.
That extra weight changes the afternoon, not the order. Rain adds weight without adding volume, so the hole you measured still takes the same cubic yards. What it changes is how the sand behaves: wet sand screeds badly, which matters when a ton is going through a wheelbarrow. Keep a tarp over the pile, and over any of it you are not using that day.
Read the same arithmetic backwards for coverage. One cubic yard spread an inch deep reaches 324 square feet, and a ton about 240. At two inches those halve to 162 and 120. At six inches a yard covers 54 square feet and a ton about 40.
Leveling a lawn over sand or clay without capping it
Leveling is a repeat job rather than a single order. Spread a quarter to a half inch, drag it in with the back of a rake until the grass tips are clear, and come back next season for the rest. A hypothetical 1,200 square feet at half an inch is 50 cubic feet, 1.85 cubic yards and 2.5 tons.
On the sandy ground of the west side this is straightforward. On the heavy clay of the southeast lake plain and around Saginaw Bay, straight sand over clay creates a hard boundary that roots tend not to cross and water tends to sit on top of, so a soil blend does more good there than sand alone. The topsoil tool sizes that version of the job.
Screened fine for mortar, rinsed clean for the play box
- Mason sand is screened to a finer, even grain. It is the one for mortar, for paver joints and under a pool liner, because it screeds smooth and leaves nothing sharp behind.
- Washed sand has had the clay and silt rinsed out of it, which suits bedding, play boxes and general mixes.
- Both are figured at the same weight per cubic yard, so swapping between them in the dropdown will not move the tonnage. The choice is about grain and cleanliness, not about the order size.
- For mixing on site, allow roughly a ton of sand to every seven or eight bags of cement, following whatever ratio the mix calls for. Mortar for a wall of a hundred block runs to something like a third of a ton of mason sand.
When the figure looks right, take it to the product page, or the rest of the bulk catalogue if the job needs stone as well, set a quantity and a date, and finish at checkout, where delivery is arranged by ZIP code. Sand wants a flat, firm drop spot and a tarp, and it is worth picking that spot before the truck arrives rather than while it is waiting.
Common questions
The sandbox has lost depth over two winters. What do I enter to bring it back up?
The shortfall, not the full six inches. Push a stick down to the bottom boards in three or four places, measure how far short of the top the sand sits, and average those readings. Two inches across a 6 by 10 box is 10 cubic feet, about 0.37 cubic yards or half a ton, which is small enough to be worth adding to another order.
What if the pool base comes up short on the day the pool goes back down?
You end up spreading the base thin at the edge, which is exactly where the wall sits, so it is not the place to save. A short base also means screeding twice. Order the next whole half ton above the estimate and use whatever is left in the joints of a path or under a paving slab.
Is the tonnage exact enough to order from, or should I treat it as a guide?
It is exact arithmetic on the numbers you typed, so its accuracy is the accuracy of your measurements and your depth. Depth is where the error usually lives. Getting a half inch wrong on a large leveling job moves the order more than any rounding the tool does.
The tool gives me tons. Which page do I order from once I have them?
Whichever of the two sands the job called for above, since the tonnage is the same either way. Mason sand for mortar, joints and pool liners, washed sand for play boxes and bedding. The tons carry straight across to the quantity field on the product page.
Where should a ton of sand go so it is not a wheelbarrow marathon?
On the firmest ground within reach of the work, on a tarp if it is going on a drive, and downhill of the job rather than up. Sand tips into a low pile that spreads wide, so leave more room than the tonnage suggests, and keep it off grass you want to keep, since a covered pile will kill what is under it in a few days.
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