Lumber board foot calculator
Calculate board feet from measured timber dimensions. Compare actual finished volume with separately entered nominal dimensions.
One uniform rectangular size at a time, with up to 10,000 identical pieces. Nominal-to-actual dimensions and supplier pricing rules are not inferred. Units may differ between cross-section and length. Change the input or settings to update your result. Results update as you type. Up to 1,000,000 characters.
Your result
How to use Lumber board foot calculator
- Enter actual thickness, width, length and piece count.
- Optionally add nominal thickness and width for a separate comparison.
- Review board feet and download the measured-volume report.
Useful next steps
A board foot is a volume
One board foot is 12 inches long, 12 inches wide and 1 inch thick, equivalent to 144 cubic inches. Using inches for thickness and width and feet for length, multiply thickness × width × length and divide by 12. Multiply again by the number of identical pieces.
Keep nominal and actual dimensions separate
A nominal size is not a measurement of the finished board. Enter the actual thickness and width you measured. The optional comparison uses separate nominal dimensions with the same actual length. The calculator does not guess a finished size from a label because product, condition and grading conventions differ.
Compare a familiar example
Ten pieces measuring 1.5 × 3.5 inches by 8 feet contain 35 board feet of actual wood. Using nominal 2 × 4 inch dimensions gives 53.3333 board feet for those same lengths. The difference describes geometry; it does not determine how a supplier will price the lumber.
Save both measures
Download the calculation in CSV, text or JSON, including actual cubic metres and cubic feet. This tool calculates uniform rectangular timber volume. It does not grade timber, predict moisture movement or approve load capacity.