Paver Sand Calculator: One Inch of Bedding, Joints by the Bag

Almost every sand order that goes wrong goes wrong the same way: someone treats bedding sand as if it were a base and orders two or three inches of it. The paver sand calculator will happily give you that tonnage. The patio will rock by the end of the first winter. Bedding is one inch, screeded flat, and the depth a patio needs goes underneath it in stone. Start from the layer table below and the rest of the order sorts itself out.

The three layers under a patio and the depth each one takes

Two of those three are sand and they are not interchangeable. The bedding course is a loose, screeded bed the pavers settle into when the surface is compacted. Joint sand is swept across the finished top and worked down between the units. One is bought by the ton, the other by the bag, and on a normal patio the quantities differ by about tenfold.

Screeding to an inch, and what to do with the number the tool gives you

Set the depth field to 1 and leave it there. The field will take anything from 0.25 to 24 inches, which is the whole problem: type 2 instead of 1 and the tonnage doubles, the order looks reassuringly generous, and you end up with a bed deep enough to move under load.

Measure the bedding area as the paved surface plus the 6-inch base overhang, the same footprint you used for the stone. Screed to rails or lengths of pipe, pull them out as you go, and fill the grooves as each paver lands. Stay off the screeded bed: work forward off the pavers already laid.

An 18 by 12 patio, worked through

Hypothetical example. A free-standing patio, 18 by 12 ft, open on all four sides, so the bedding footprint picks up 6 inches on each side.

1. Choose Rectangle.
2. Length 19, Width 13, in feet. That is 247 sq ft.
3. Depth 1, in inches.
4. Pick the sand in the material box, which applies 1.35 tons per cubic yard.
5. Tick Add 5% extra for compaction & spillage. Screeding wastes more sand than most people expect.
6. Calculate.

• 247 x 1 ÷ 12 = 20.58 cubic feet
• 20.58 ÷ 27 = 0.76 cubic yards
• 0.76 x 1.35 = 1.03 tons
• With the 5% ticked: 0.80 cubic yards and 1.08 tons

Order about 1.25 tons of Mason Sand or Washed Sand. Had the depth gone in as 2 inches, the same patio would have come back at over 2 tons of sand and a surface that never quite settles.

For the joints, work off the paved area rather than the bedding footprint. At 216 sq ft with standard 1/8 to 1/4 inch joints, one 50 lb bag covering 40 to 75 sq ft puts it at 3 to 6 bags.

Paver thickness and joint width both move that coverage, so take one bag more than the chart says, bought locally rather than from the bulk listings here. Joints drop about a quarter inch after the first wash-in and want topping straight back up.

Garden path, seating area, driveway apron: which sand goes where

Bedding material is the same on all three, and it has to be coarse and angular so the grains lock. Play sand is fine and round, rolls under load, and works its way out of joints. It is not a substitute at any point in this build.

The joint choice is where the jobs separate.

• A level garden path. Plain mason sand swept in is quick and easy to top up. Expect to add more every season or two.
• A seating area. Either works. Polymeric holds better against ants and against the hose.
• A driveway apron or anything on a slope. Polymeric. Snowmelt running off a roof or down a drive will strip plain sand out of the joints in a couple of springs, and a slope gives the water somewhere to take it.

Polymeric has to go down completely dry and be misted to set, so watch the afternoon storm forecast. A shower halfway through a sweep spoils the whole surface. Once it is in, keep the leaf blower turned down near the joints.

Where a patio sits on ground that heaves, the joints are the early warning. Sand disappearing from the same two or three joints every spring usually means water is running across the patio rather than off it. Check the fall and the downspouts before buying more sand.

Twenty-seven hundred pounds a yard, and the squeegee alternative

Mason and washed sand are published on this site at approximately 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.35 tons. At a screeded inch, a cubic yard covers roughly 320 sq ft, so the bedding order on a typical patio lands near a ton and looks small next to the stone order under it. That is correct, and it is not a sign you have measured wrong.

Plenty of crews here bed on squeegee instead, the 1/4 inch minus material sold as Crusher Fines. It screeds to a firmer bed and is less forgiving while you level it, and it is heavier: screenings are published at approximately 2,900 lb per cubic yard, or 1.45 tons. On the 247 sq ft example above, the same 0.76 cubic yards comes to 1.10 tons rather than 1.03. Pick one material and use it across the whole area, never half and half.

Note that this is the bedding tool. Mason and washed sand bought for mortar work, a sandbox or a mix are sized in the sand calculator instead, which is the same arithmetic without the fixed one-inch depth.

The bag you keep back after the screed rails come up

Round the bedding order up to the next quarter ton. Sand is light to move and the leftover goes into the next job, while running out mid-screed means stopping with half a patio bedded and an open bed exposed to whatever the weather does overnight.

On joint sand, buy the extra bag. The first wash-in always takes more than the chart suggests, and the second top-up comes a few weeks later once everything has settled. Keep the spare somewhere dry: polymeric that has taken on damp in the bag is finished.

Set quantity and a date on the product page; how delivery is arranged follows from your ZIP at checkout, and the load needs somewhere firm to sit. Throw a tarp over the sand pile as soon as it lands, because damp sand screeds badly and soaked sand does not screed at all.

Common questions

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