Board Footage Calculator and Hardwood Price Estimator

Calculate Board Footage

Find the board footage of lumber by entering the length, width, and thickness of your boards. You can estimate hardwood cost by adding a price per board foot.

What is Board Footage

Board footage is simply the unit of volume measure of a piece of wood in feet. Large slabs of rough wood, lumber, and exotic woods are usually measured and priced by the board foot, which accounts for the thickness, width, and length of a piece of wood. A board that is 1 inch thick x 1 foot wide x 1 foot long is 1 board foot. A board-foot is abbreviated BDFT, BF, or FBM(foot, board measure).

Board footage is used as a way of quantifying how much wood a board contains since length by itself is not enough to quantify how much volume the lumber contains. Boards that are wider or thicker contain more wood. For example, a board that is ⁴/₄ x 4″ x 8′ has the same amount of wood as a board that is ⁴/₄ x 8″ x 4′.

A board footage measurement would indicate that both boards are equal in size, while a length measurement would make the skinny board appear to be larger.

The thickness of a hardwood board is often measured in quarters of an inch, so a 1″ board is referred to as a 4/4, or 4 quarters.

How to Calculate Board Footage

Board footage, or how much wood by volume the board contains, can be found using the calculator above, or by using a simple formula.

Calculate Board Footage using Length in Inches

Board feet can be calculated by multiplying the thickness of a board in inches by the width of the board in inches by the length of the board in inches and then dividing the result by 144. The formula is thus (thickness × width × length) ÷ 144. Keep all measurements in inches, and then divide by 144.

BDFT = (T” × W” × L”) ÷ 144

Calculate Board Footage using Length in Feet

You can also find the board footage of a board if your length dimension is in feet. Multiply the thickness of a board in inches by the width of the board in inches by the length of the board in feet and then divide the result by 12.

BDFT = (T” × W” × L’) ÷ 12

If you need help converting to inches, convert feet to inches, convert yards to inches, or convert centimeters to inches The calculator above will easily calculate the board footage and convert dimensions automatically. It will also help determine the price of the board given the price per BF.

The board footage calculator uses inches in decimal format. You can convert decimal measurements to fractions if you need the decimal equivalent for your dimensions.

Common Board Feet Measurements for 1″ Thick Lumber

Common Board Feet Measurements for 2″ Thick Lumber