Plan the framing for walls and roofs and price your lumber before you buy. Each calculator turns your measurements into pieces, sheets, board feet or lengths, with a worked example on every page.
Framing and lumber calculators
- Stud calculator: studs and plates for a wall, with spacing, corners and openings.
- Rafter calculator: rafter length, roof angle, board length to buy and number of rafters.
- Roof truss calculator: trusses needed, height at the peak and top chord length.
- Board foot calculator: board feet and cost for any mix of lumber sizes.
- Log board foot calculator: board feet in a log with the Doyle, Scribner and International rules.
- Plywood calculator: sheets of plywood or OSB for walls, floors and roofs.
Which calculator should I use?
| Your project | Calculator |
|---|---|
| Framing a wall or partition | Stud |
| Cutting rafters for a shed or gable roof | Rafter |
| Ordering trusses for a roof | Roof truss |
| Buying or pricing lumber | Board foot |
| Selling or milling logs | Log board foot |
| Sheathing walls, subfloors or roofs | Plywood |
Sizing joists, beams and rafters
These calculators work out quantities and lengths. The size of joists, beams and rafters depends on the span, the load, the wood species and grade, and your local building code. Use the span tables in your local code, or the span calculator from the American Wood Council, and follow your plans.
See How We Calculate for the formulas we use.
