How to Calculate Square Feet for Concrete

Concrete is a necessary item for many home improvement projects. Whether you're pouring a driveway or a pool deck, one of the first things you'll need to know is how much concrete you're going to need to complete the job. In order to figure square feet for a concrete project, you only need to perform a few simple calculations.

Tape measure
Calculator

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the length and width of the area you plan to pour concrete over.
- 2
  Multiply the length times the width for square footage. For instance, if you plan to pour a concrete driveway that will be 25 feet long and 12 feet wide, the square footage would be 300 square feet.
- 3
  Measure all the sides for an area that isn't shaped like a rectangle or square.
- 4
  Draw a scale drawing of the area on graph paper.
- 5
  Section the drawing into rectangles, squares and triangles.
- 6
  Find the area of each section. For squares and rectangles, multiply length times width. For triangles, multiply base times height and divide the product by 2.
- 7
  Add the area of each section to find the total area.
- 8
  Convert the thickness of your concrete into feet by dividing inches by 12. For instance, if you want your driveway to be 4 inches thick, divide 4 by 12 to get 0.333 feet of concrete.
- 9
  Multiply the area by the thickness. For this example, multiply 300 times 0.333 to get 99.9 cubic feet of concrete.
- 10
  Convert the cubic feet into cubic yards, since that's how concrete is usually measured. Do this by dividing by 27 (3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet). The equation would look like this: 99.9 / 27 = 3.7 cubic yards
  
  You would need 3.7 cubic yards to pave a 4-inch thick driveway that's 25 feet long and 12 feet wide.

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