Paver Sand Calculator for Bedding and Joint Fill
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The ground a California patio sits on is doing something underneath it all year. Expansive clay in the Coast Range valleys and the Southern California basins swells through the wet months and shrinks back in the dry ones; sandy coastal and desert soils drop water straight through and give nothing to push against. Neither of those problems is solved by sand. The bedding course is a thin, precise layer that lets pavers sit true on a base that has already done the structural work, and this paver sand calculator treats it as exactly that: one inch, no more.
A patio with a step landing and a curved corner
Bedding sand is sized on the base area, not the paved area, which means the same 6 inch overhang the stone got. Work each piece separately and add them up. A patio 16 feet by 11 with the house along one long side becomes 17 by 11.5, or 195.5 square feet. A 6 by 4 foot step landing hanging off it, free on three sides, becomes 7 by 4.5, or 31.5 square feet. Together that is 227 square feet of bedding.
Curves are handled the same way as anywhere else: square them off to the piece that most nearly contains them and round up at the tape rather than trying to be clever with the shape. Sand is a good material to have a little spare of and an awkward one to run out of halfway across a screeded bay.
Screed rails, five areas and the paver sand calculator
Rectangle takes a length and a width in feet, Circle takes a diameter for a round seating area or a tree well, and Multiple areas totals up to five pieces, which is what the patio and landing above would use.
Depth accepts 0.25 to 24 inches like every tool here, but for bedding there is only one correct entry, and it is 1. Pick the material, decide on the option that adds 5 percent for compaction and spillage, and the answer comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet. Use the email button, because the sand figure and the base figure are two separate orders on the same job and it helps to have both in writing before you buy either.
One inch for bedding, joint width for the bags
The two materials on a paver surface are counted in different units, and mixing that up is how people end up with a ton of sand and no way to fill the joints.
Bedding is a volume: one screeded inch of coarse, angular sand over the whole base area. Do not go to two. A deeper sand layer lets pavers move, which shows up as dips and rocking edges a season later. Any extra depth the job needs belongs in the stone below, sized on the paver base tool.
Joint fill is counted by bag coverage. For standard joints between 1/8 and 1/4 inch, plan on one 50 lb bag per 40 to 75 square feet of paving. Wide joints of 3/8 inch and up can halve that, and so can a thicker paver, so read the coverage chart on the bag and round up.
| Paved area | Standard joints, 1/8 to 1/4 inch | Wide joints, 3/8 inch 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 |
An inch across a whole patio comes to under a ton
Mason and washed sand are published here at about 2,700 lb per cubic yard, or 1.35 tons. Spread one inch thick, a cubic yard covers 324 square feet, which is why bedding orders stay small even on a generous patio. The working shortcut is 0.42 tons per 100 square feet at 1 inch.
The 227 square foot patio above: 227 x 1 / 12 = 18.9 cubic feet, which is 18.9 / 27 = 0.70 cubic yards, or 0.95 tons. Call it a ton. Its 200 square feet of paving needs 3 to 5 bags of joint fill, and the base course under all of it is a separate several-ton order. A 30 by 3 foot garden path, free on both long sides but closed at each end, has a bedding area of 30.5 by 4, or 122 square feet: 122 / 12 = 10.2 cubic feet, which is 0.38 cubic yards and 0.51 tons, with 2 to 3 bags for its joints. Both are illustrations rather than orders anyone has placed.
Mason sand on a level path, polymeric on a sloped drive
Use coarse, angular sand for bedding, which is what Mason Sand and Washed Sand are. Play sand is rounded and fine, so it rolls under load and washes out of joints. Decomposed Granite makes a firmer bed than sand but gives you less room to adjust a paver while leveling, so pick one material and use it across the whole surface.
For joints, plain fine mason sand is quick to sweep in and wants topping up every season or two. Polymeric sand sets once wetted and holds for several years, which earns its place on a sloped drive or anywhere winter runoff crosses the paving, but it has to go down bone dry and an unexpected sprinkler can ruin a whole sweep. A level garden path is fine with plain sand. Whichever you pick for the joints, the bedding underneath stays plain coarse sand.
Topping up joints on a patio that came through the storms
An existing patio that only needs joint fill needs no volume calculation at all. Measure the paved area, take the bag count from the table above, and sweep on a dry day, compact, then mist. Keep the leaf blower on a low setting near filled joints, since that and ants and running water are what empty them in the first place.
If sand keeps washing out of the same run of joints every winter, the cause is usually upstream of the patio rather than in it. Check where a downspout lands and which way the surface falls before buying more sand.
Mason Sand by the ton, joint sand by the bag
Bedding sand is ordered by weight from the product page, with quantity and date chosen there and how the drop is arranged settled by ZIP at checkout. For sizing sand for a job with a depth you choose, such as a sandbox or a pipe bed, the general sand tool is the one to open instead. Keep a tarp over the pile once it lands: damp sand screeds beautifully and soaked sand does not screed at all.
Common questions
Does an existing patio that only needs joint sand swept in go through the one-inch calculation at all?
No volume is needed for that. Measure the paved area, then take the bag count from the joint table. The one-inch calculation only applies when you are setting pavers and screeding a new bed.
What goes wrong at the screed if the pile empties before the bay is finished?
You lose the screed. Restarting a bay after a gap rarely lands at the same level, and the join shows as a ridge under the pavers. Order the next round figure up rather than the exact tonnage, and keep the surplus tarped for joint work.
Screeding losses, an uneven base, wind off the pile - what margin do those add up to?
The arithmetic is exact and the site is not. Screeding losses, an uneven base and whatever the wind takes off the pile put the real requirement roughly ten to fifteen percent either side, which the 5 percent option and rounding up at the tape are there to absorb.
Is the joint sand bought by the ton from the same product page as the bedding?
Mason Sand or Washed Sand for the bedding course, by the ton. Joint sand is a bagged product, counted from the table rather than from this tool.
Can the sand pile sit on bare soil beside the excavation until the bed is screeded?
On a hard surface close to the screed rails, clear of the excavation and clear of the stone pile, with a tarp under it and another over it. Sand that sits on soil picks up the soil, and it is the one material on the job where that shows.
Related calculators
One ton of bedding beats 25 bags.
Mason and washed sand delivered free; keep the bags for the polymeric sweep.