How To Find Cubic Yards Of Concrete

I desire to pour a concrete house slab that is 48 feet long by 26 anxiety wide. How would I make up one's mind how much concrete would be needed?

Thanks for your help, Tom

Concrete is ordered by the cubic yard. One cubic m of concrete would fill up a container that is 1 yard past ane yard by ane yard or 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet or 27 cubic anxiety.

Dear Tom,

In order to determine the amount of concrete that you lot will need for your project, you will first need to determine the book of the infinite that will be filled with concrete. Yous tin exercise this past:

Defining the space as a given shape or combination of shapes.
Applying the appropriate formula to find the volume of each shape.
Adding or subtracting shapes to find the total volume of all the combined shapes.

The slab you describe is a rectangle, which is 48 feet past 26 feet. The formula used to find the area of a rectangle is:

Area (of a rectangle) = Length x Width
A = 48 feet ten 26 feet
A = 1,248 square feet

However, this figure actually only represents the surface area of the concrete – note that the respond is in foursquare feet. To find the volume of concrete, you even so need to multiply the surface area by the height or depth of the concrete in social club to go cubic feet of concrete.

Volume (of a rectangular shape) = Length x Width x Height

While y'all don't mention the thickness of the slab y'all wish to pour, virtually residential slabs are about 4 inches thick. So, if yous are pouring a typical slab, you volition need ane,248 foursquare feet of physical that is 4 inches thick. With one notable exception, Board Anxiety of Lumber, like units must be used when multiplying numbers to discover volume. So, y'all need to convert iv inches into feet and so multiply the square expanse in feet by the depth in anxiety.

4 inches = 1/3 of 1 pes (12 inches) = .3333 feet
one,248 foursquare feet x .3333 feet = 415.9584 cubic feet

So, the volume of concrete contained in the slab is 415.9584 cubic anxiety. However, since physical is generally ordered by the cubic yard – in America – that number still needs to be divided by 27 cubic feet (3-feet x 3-feet x three-feet) in society to arrive at the number of cubic yards.

415.9584 cubic feet / 27 cubic anxiety = 15.4059 cubic yards

Keep in mind that the to a higher place number represents the amount of concrete that would be needed without factoring into account any waste, variances in the depth of physical, pipes, columns, steel reinforcing or other objects that may exist taking upwards space in the surface area to be poured. While you don't want to accept too much concrete left over, it volition almost certainly be considerably less expensive to pay for an extra m that you may not need than to deal with the results of running short.

Good luck with your projection, cheers for visiting B4UBUILD.COM, and have fun building!

Greg