Drywall calculator
Sheets for walls and ceilings, with the screws, compound and tape that go with them.
Drywall
Sheets for walls and ceilings, with the screws, compound and tape that go with them.
Screws at one per sq ft, compound at 0.053 lb per sq ft, tape at 0.37 ft per sq ft.
$592
37.0 sheets of ½ in standard at $16.00 / sheet
Free. No signup. The quantities carry over as line items.
How this drywall calculator works
Sheets are the easy part. The compound, tape and screws that go with them are what people forget to price, and on a big job they are real money.
The formula
sheets = ⌈area ÷ sheet size × (1 + waste)⌉ · compound = area × 0.053 lb · tape = area × 0.37 ft
Assumptions and defaults
| 4 × 8 sheet | 32 sq ft |
| 4 × 10 sheet | 40 sq ft |
| 4 × 12 sheet | 48 sq ft |
| Default waste | 10% |
| Screws | about one per sq ft |
Pro tips
Longer sheets mean fewer butt joints, and butt joints are what finishers charge for. If the room takes 12 ft board and you can get it in the door, buy 12 ft board.
Order the mud by weight, not by bucket. A 4.5 gallon box is about 61 lb, so the compound figure here divides straight into boxes.
Count ceilings separately in your head even though the calculator adds them in — hanging a ceiling is roughly double the labour of a wall.
Common questions
How many sheets of drywall for a 12 × 12 room?
Walls plus ceiling on a 12 × 12 room with 8 ft ceilings is about 528 sq ft. At 4 × 8 sheets that is 16.5 sheets before waste — call it 19 with ten per cent.
What size drywall sheets should I use?
4 × 12 wherever it fits. Fewer joints, faster finish, better wall. Drop to 4 × 8 when access, stairwells or a one-person crew make the long board a fight.
How much joint compound will I need?
About 0.053 lb per square foot of board for a level-four finish, which is what this calculator shows. Level five with a skim coat runs closer to 0.08.
Is ⅝ in worth it over ½ in?
In a garage, a party wall or under a ceiling on 24 in centres, yes — it is code in most of those places anyway. In a normal bedroom, ½ in is fine and easier to hang.