Sand Calculator for Pool Bases, Play Boxes and Leveling
Enter your project dimensions
Most sand orders start with something you can already put a tape on: a ring of flattened grass where the pool is going, four boards screwed together waiting to be filled, a lawn with a low run beside the walk. Get those numbers written down in feet and inches and the rest of this page is arithmetic and timing.
Watching the forecast before a load of sand lands
Sand is the one material on this site that cares what the sky is doing. A cubic yard of dry sand weighs about 2,700 lb, and that is the figure the order is built on. Let a Georgia thunderstorm sit on the same yard and it gets appreciably heavier without gaining a single cubic foot, which changes nothing about the quantity you ordered and everything about the afternoon you planned. Wet sand will not screed flat; it drags behind the board and leaves ridges.
So pick a stretch with a couple of clear days, put the pile where it can be tarped, and do the screeding work first. Order for the dry weight in every case, because rain adds water, not volume.
Taking the numbers off a round pool, a box frame and a low lawn
An above-ground pool is a circle, so the number the tool wants is the diameter in feet across the leveled pad, not the pool's printed size, and the pad normally runs a foot wider all round than the wall.
A play box is a rectangle measured on the inside of the timber, since the frame itself is not getting filled. A lawn area is whatever you can actually reach with a shovel and a leveling rake: measure the patch, not the whole back yard, and note the depth you intend to blend in rather than the depth of the hollow.
Where a pool ring and a play box go in the form
Pick the shape first. Rectangle asks for length and width in feet, circle asks for a diameter in feet, and multiple areas will hold up to five separate pieces, which covers a sandbox plus two low spots in the lawn in a single run.
Depth goes in next, in inches, anywhere from 0.25 to 24, so a half-inch lawn blend is entered as 0.5. Choose mason or washed sand from the material list, decide on the box marked add 5% extra for compaction and spillage, and press the button. The result comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, with an option underneath to have the figures emailed to you.
Tons on the ticket, cubic yards in the pile
Sand leaves here by the ton, and the tool shows both numbers because the volume is what you measured and the tonnage is what gets loaded. The conversion is the 2,700 lb figure above, which is 1.35 tons for every cubic yard.
Written out: length times width in feet gives square feet, times depth in inches, divided by 12 for cubic feet, divided by 27 for cubic yards, times 1.35 for tons. Mason sand and washed sand carry the same weight per yard on this site, so switching between the two in the dropdown does not move the result. Switch to a base stone and it does, since crushed material with fines runs nearer 3,000 lb a yard.
A 22 foot pool pad, a 6 by 10 play box and a low strip of lawn
Three made-up jobs, written out so you can follow the math.
A pad for a round above-ground pool at 2 inches of mason sand, pegged out a foot wider all round than the wall and entered as a 22 foot circle. Circle mode gives 380.1 square feet. 380.1 x 2 / 12 = 63.4 cubic feet, which is 2.35 cubic yards, or 3.17 tons. Screed it dead level and keep stones and screenings off it, because anything with an edge sits between the liner and the ground.
A play box 6 by 10 feet inside the frame, filled 6 inches deep with washed sand. That is 60 square feet. 60 x 6 / 12 = 30 cubic feet, or 1.11 cubic yards, which is 1.50 tons.
A low strip of lawn, about 900 square feet, blended at half an inch. 900 x 0.5 / 12 = 37.5 cubic feet, or 1.39 cubic yards, which is 1.88 tons. Work it into the turf with a rake rather than leaving it as a layer, because a continuous sheet of sand over red clay gives grass roots a seam they will not cross.
Which of the two sands the liner and the play box want
Mason Sand is the finer, more even of the two, which is why it goes under pool liners, into mortar and into paver joints where a smooth finish matters. Washed Sand has had its clay and silt rinsed out, so it suits play boxes, bedding and site-mixed concrete. On a mortar job, the working figure is around a ton of sand for every 7 to 8 bags of cement, then follow the mix the job calls for.
If the sand is going under pavers, the paver sand calculator is the page you want, because bedding is held to a strict inch and the joint sweep is figured separately. And if there is compacted stone going in first, size that on the paver base calculator or the crusher run calculator and run the sand as its own layer here.
Ordering a shade over, because sand goes everywhere
Tick the 5% box. Sand spills off the wheelbarrow, sticks to the shovel and disappears into the grass at the edge of a pad, and five percent of a two ton order is about a wheelbarrow load, which is roughly what a job that size loses.
Bags are worth a sanity check rather than a plan. A 50 lb bag holds about half a cubic foot, so a cubic yard is around 54 of them. The 6 by 10 play box above would be 60 bags to carry, stack and split open, against a yard and a bit dropped in one go. Once the figure looks right, open the product page to set your quantity and date, or start from everything sold by the ton here. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, so leave the truck a firm spot to tip on, clear of the pool pad you just leveled; how a bulk drop works covers the access and the dump spot.
Common questions
The sandbox wraps around the deck steps in an L. One entry or two?
One calculation, two entries. Use multiple areas and put in each leg as its own rectangle, meeting but not overlapping at the corner. The tool totals as many as five pieces, so a box plus a couple of low patches in the lawn can all go in together.
The pool ring sits inside a timber frame. Is that band part of the area?
Only if sand is going under it. Measure to the inside face of the frame where the frame sits on the ground, and to the outside edge of the leveled pad where the sand runs beneath and past it. The strip is small, but on a round pad it is the part everyone forgets.
I am putting stone down before the sand. Does that go in the same run?
No. Run each layer on its own, because the depths differ and so do the weights. Size the compacted stone first, then come back and size the sand at its finished thickness, and order them as two lines rather than one lump.
The volleyball court has one rounded end. How do I handle that?
Split it. Enter the straight part as a rectangle and the rounded end as a circle, then let multiple areas add them. A half-round end entered as a full circle overshoots, so either halve that result by hand or square the end off and accept a little extra sand at the rounding.
The sand under the pool has settled in patches. How do I size a top-up?
Measure the patch, not the pad. Take the average depth of the dip with a straightedge laid across it, usually half an inch to an inch, and enter that with the patch dimensions. Top-ups almost always come out under a ton, so the 5% box matters less than rounding up to a workable quantity.
Related calculators
Two sands, one free truck.
Mason and washed sand by the ton, delivered free across Georgia.
