Calculating Board Feet

The board foot is a unit of volume for measuring lumber. It refers to the equivalent of a board that is 1" thick, 12" wide and 12" long. Any board that has this same amount of volume is one board foot.

The dimensions that are used when calculating board feet are nominal dimensions. Nominal dimensions refer to the original size of the board before it has been planed.

Board feet is calculated with the following formula:

               Thickness (in.) x Width (in.) x Length(ft)
Board Feet = ------------------------------------------
          12

Below is a table that can be used to quickly lookup how many board feet are in a board with common dimensions.

Thickness (in)	Width (in)	Length(ft)
		4	6	8	10	12
1/2	1	0.17	0.25	0.33	0.42	0.50
	2	0.33	0.50	0.67	0.83	1.00
	4	0.67	1.00	1.33	1.67	2.00
	6	1.00	1.50	2.00	2.50	3.00
	8	1.33	2.00	2.67	3.33	4.00
1	1	0.33	0.50	0.67	0.83	1.00
	2	0.67	1.00	1.33	1.67	2.00
	4	1.33	2.00	2.67	3.33	4.00
	6	2.00	3.00	4.00	5.00	6.00
	8	2.67	4.00	5.33	6.67	8.00
2	1	0.67	1.00	1.33	1.67	2.00
	2	1.33	2.00	2.67	3.33	4.00
	4	2.67	4.00	5.33	6.67	8.00
	6	4.00	6.00	8.00	10.00	12.00
	8	5.33	8.00	10.67	13.33	16.00

Created 2/25/2009 - CleghornCreations.com