The Garden Stone for 5 Sided Area calculator estimates cubic feet and number of units (e.g., bags) of garden stone to cover a five sided shaped area.
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose units and enter the following:
Number of Units of Stone (nB): The calculator returns the returns the number of units of stone, the volume of stone in cubic feet, and the area covered in square yards. However, these can be automatically converted to compatible units via the pull-down menu.
The Math / Science
Very few yards are perfect rectangles. By using the length of the sides and diagonals, this calculator uses Heron's formula to compute the area (A). Volume of stone is simply area times depth. The number of bags is volume divided by the bag size.
When purchasing river stone or other types of landscaping stone, the most common units and delivery sizes are:
Common Delivery Sizes:
Stone Sizes:
Garden stone is available in most DIY stores such as Home Depot, Menards and Lowes. Because stone is heavy, these garden stone products often comes in relatively small bags of differing volumes such as:
The size of the stones usually range from pea sized to river stones that are about the size of grapefruits.
Garden Stone Product | Bag Size | Coverage |
---|---|---|
Mastercraft Pea Gravel (1/4" - 3/8") | 50 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
Mastercraft Multi-Purpose Gravel (3/4" - 1/2") | 42 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
Nordic Stone | 47 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
North Rock River Pebble (1/2" to 3/4") | 48 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
North Rock Mountain Blend (1" to 1-1/2") | 47 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
North Rock Western Sunset | 47 lb | 0.5 ft3 |
North Rock Red Lava Rock | 40 lb | 1.0 ft3 |
North Rock White Marble (3/4" to 1") | 39 lb | 0.4 ft3 |
PLEASE RECOMMEND OTHERS! | TBD | TBD |
For large areas (lawns, gardens or fields), it may be hard to measure longer lengths, because you have no measuring device to make the long measurements (electronic device or long measuring tape or twine). In this case, an estimate can be achieved by using paces (your steps).
To estimate a length with paces, you first have to make a reasonable estimate of a regular pace while in stride. To do this, put a mark on the ground, and step back several paces. Start walking to the mark, and start counting some number of paces past the mark (e.g. 10). A that point, stop and measure the length. For example a man of six feet tall with a normal stride walked 14 paces in 40 feet. That gave him a feet per pace of 2.857 feet per pace. To compute the Feet per Pace, CLICK HERE. You can then walk off the measurements, using a steady pace, and convert the Paces to Feet by CLICKING HERE. It's a rough estimation method, but not without it's uses.
Often it is required to put land pieces together to compute to total area of land. The land shown can be accurately computed by individual triangles. The area of 5 sided land function requires the diagonals that create three triangles that are summed to compute the area in a 5 sided piece of land.