CalculatorEnter your measurements below and it works the answer out.
Area divided by coverage, plus 5% waste, rounded up to whole pallets. Enter what you measured and pick how it is sold.
The arithmetic. Work out the area, divide by what one pallet covers, add 5% waste, round up. Nothing more than that — the value of the page is the coverage figures and the waste allowance, both of which are stated here rather than hidden inside the tool.
Why the waste allowance is 5%. Five per cent covers the cuts around beds, paths and curves. Sod is a living product on a clock: it should go down within 24 hours of delivery, so ordering a little over beats ordering again.
How it is sold. Sod is sold by the pallet, and a pallet is not a standard size — it runs from about 400 to 500 square feet depending on the farm and the slab size. Ask before you order; that spread is a hundred square feet.
Measure the openings honestly. Deduct large openings — a garage door, a picture window, a stairwell — and ignore small ones. Cutting a sheet or a board around a normal door wastes more material than the opening saves, which is why trades quote gross area and let the waste allowance absorb it.
Round up to how it is sold. A calculator that tells you 6.3 sheets is not finished. Everything below is rounded up to whole units, because that is what you can actually buy.
Divide your area in square feet by the coverage of one pallet, then add 5% and round up. At 450 sq ft each, a 200 sq ft job needs 1.
5% is what this calculator adds. Five per cent covers the cuts around beds, paths and curves. Sod is a living product on a clock: it should go down within 24 hours of delivery, so ordering a little over beats ordering again.
Divide your area by the pallet coverage your supplier actually uses, then add about five per cent for cuts. A 2,000 sq ft lawn is between four and five pallets depending on whether their pallet is 400 or 500 square feet.
A day, less in heat. Stacked sod heats up in the middle of the pallet and starts to yellow within about 24 hours. Book the delivery for the morning you are laying it, not the week before.