Paver Sand Calculator for Bedding Courses and Joint Refills
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Walk out to an existing patio and the joints will tell you what it needs. Sand standing level with the paver chamfer means the joints are full. A shadow line a quarter inch down, ant heaps at the corners, a fine gray fan on the lawn below the low edge: that is joint sand that has left, and it leaves fastest on the run where roof water crosses the paving. That patio needs bags. A patio that has not been built yet needs tons. Those are two separate orders and the difference between them is close to tenfold, which is the whole reason this page exists.
The dry stretch a joint sweep needs, and when it turns up here
Bedding sand is forgiving about weather. It wants to be slightly damp, screeds beautifully that way, and only saturated material gives you trouble.
Joint sand is not forgiving at all if you are using the polymeric kind. It has to go in bone dry, be swept off the paver faces completely, and then be watered on purpose in the order the bag says. A shower that arrives halfway through the sweep sets it where it is standing, on top of the pavers, and the cleanup is worse than the job.
That rules out most of the wet stretch from December through April, and it makes a summer afternoon a gamble, because a storm can build in an hour. The reliable window here is the settled run of dry days after the summer storms have eased off and before the winter rain sets in. Watch a three-day forecast, not a one-day one: dry ahead of the sweep, dry during it, and your own hose doing the watering at the end.
Measuring the bed off the base footprint, not the paver faces
Bedding sand covers the same footprint as the stone base beneath it, which is the paved area plus about six inches past every open edge. That extension is where the edge restraint sits, and the bedding runs out to it.
So a free-standing patio 22 feet by 14 is 308 square feet of paving, but the bed is 23 by 15, which is 345 square feet. A patio against the house only gets the extension on its open sides.
Joints are measured differently again. There, the number you want is the paved area itself, 308 square feet, because the joints only exist between pavers.
Leaving the depth field on one inch, every time
Put the bedding footprint in as length and width in feet, or a diameter for a circle, and use Multiple areas if the patio is in pieces, up to five of them. The depth field takes anything from 0.25 to 24 inches. Type 1 and leave it there.
One inch is the specification for a screeded bedding course and it is not a starting point to be adjusted. Two inches of sand under pavers moves under load, which is how a patio ends up wavy a year after it was laid flat. If the levels are out, the fix goes into the stone base underneath, not into the sand.
Screed the inch over pipes or rails, fill the grooves as you lay, and leave the bed loose until the pavers are down. Work forward off laid pavers and stay off the screeded sand.
The bed converts at 1.35 a yard. The joints do not convert at all
Coarse bedding sand runs about 2,700 lb a cubic yard on this site's published figures, which is 1.35 tons. Cubic feet divided by 27 gives cubic yards; times 1.35 gives tons. At the one-inch depth that works out at about 0.42 tons for every 100 square feet of bed, and a single cubic yard beds roughly 320 square feet.
Joint sand does not convert that way, because the volume depends on the joint width and the paver thickness rather than on the area. It is counted in bags.
| Paved area | Standard joints, 1/8 to 1/4 in | Wide joints, 3/8 in and up |
|---|---|---|
| 100 sq ft | 2 to 3 bags | 3 to 5 bags |
| 200 sq ft | 3 to 5 bags | 6 to 10 bags |
| 300 sq ft | 4 to 8 bags | 8 to 15 bags |
| 500 sq ft | 7 to 13 bags | 14 to 25 bags |
A 50 lb bag covers somewhere between 40 and 75 square feet at standard joint widths. Round up, and buy one more than the chart says, because the joints drop a little after the first wash-in and you will want material to top them. Those bags are a separate trip to a garden center or landscape supply; the bulk order here is the bedding sand.
A 22 by 14 patio and the two orders it takes
Hypothetical, free-standing, laid on a compacted stone base.
The bed. 345 square feet at 1 inch: 345 x 1 ÷ 12 = 28.75 cubic feet. 28.75 ÷ 27 = 1.065 cubic yards. 1.065 x 1.35 = 1.44 tons. Order a ton and a half of mason sand or washed sand, both of which are angular and coarse enough to lock together.
The joints. 308 square feet of paving at standard widths: 308 ÷ 75 is 4.1 and 308 ÷ 40 is 7.7, so five to eight bags, and buy a ninth.
Under both of those sits the stone, which is the biggest of the three orders and is sized on the paver base calculator. If what you actually want is bulk sand for a slab bed, a pipe run or a trench rather than the one-inch course under pavers, that is a different depth and a different tool: use the sand calculator.
Do not use play sand for either job. The grains are rounded and fine, so they roll under load and wash out of joints.
Reading a patio whose joints have dropped
For a refill you need no bedding at all, unless you are lifting pavers. Measure only the paving: a 30-foot path at 3 feet 6 inches wide is 105 square feet, which at standard joint widths is 105 ÷ 75 to 105 ÷ 40, so two to three bags.
Before you refill, work out where the sand went. Plain sand normally needs a fresh sweep every year or two, and polymeric can hold for several years before the joint edges start opening. Losing it faster than that usually means water is crossing the paving rather than leaving it: a downspout discharging onto the patio, a slope feeding onto the top edge, or a bed that overflows in a downpour. Fix the water first or you will be back with more bags next spring.
What to do with the half ton you have left
Bedding sand is ordered in round tons and patios are not round numbers, so there is usually some left. Keep a tarp over it. That holds it at the damp-but-not-soaked state that screeds well, and it will sit until you want it for a path, a sandbox or the leveling under flagstones.
Take the tonnage to the product page, choose a quantity and a date, and check the access to your drop spot before you book, since sand needs somewhere firm to land. If you are not sure which of the two sands suits the job, ask through the contact page before ordering.
Common questions
I only need the joints refilled. What do I measure?
The paved surface, and nothing else. Skip the calculator's depth field entirely for that job and use the bag chart instead, because joint sand is counted by bags rather than by volume. If you are lifting and relaying part of the patio, then the area you lift needs its inch of bedding sand too, and that piece goes through the calculator as normal.
What happens if I come up short on bedding?
You stop, which is the problem. A screeded bed has to be laid and covered in one run, and a second delivery arriving two days later leaves you with a half-laid patio and a strip of loose sand exposed to whatever falls on it. Round the tonnage up. Leftover coarse sand keeps indefinitely under a tarp, while a shortfall costs you a working day.
How close is the estimate to what I will actually use?
The bedding figure is exact for the footprint and the inch you entered, and the published weight it converts with. What varies in practice is the base underneath: a slightly uneven base eats a little more sand in the low places. The joint bag range is wider because joint width and paver thickness both move it, which is why the chart gives a span rather than a number.
Which product page do I order from once I have the number?
For the bedding course, either the mason sand or the washed sand page, both of which are coarse and angular. Mason sand is the finer of the two and sweeps into joints well; washed sand is the coarser choice for bedding and leveling. Order whichever you use across the whole patio rather than mixing them, and take the tons figure with you.
Where should a ton and a half of sand be tipped?
Somewhere firm and close to the work, with room for the truck to lift its bed clear. Sand will not sit in a neat pile the way stone does, and it spreads as it dries, so a corner of the drive with a tarp under it is better than the middle of a lawn. Keep it uphill of the patio if the lot has any fall, so wheelbarrow runs go the easy way.
Related calculators
One ton of bedding beats 25 bags.
Mason and washed sand delivered free; keep the bags for the polymeric sweep.