How Much Sod for 1,000 Square Feet?
Pallets to buy
3 pallets
1,000 square feet of new lawn, nothing deducted, 10 sq ft pieces, five percent waste.
Sod does not keep. It is a cut plant and in warm weather it wants to be down and watered within a day of leaving the farm. 3 pallets is more than a two person crew lays in a day, so either stage the delivery or put more hands on it.
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How that number is worked out
These are the figures this page was built with and every line the calculator produces from them. Change anything above and all of it moves.
- Lawn length100 ft
- Lawn width10 ft
- Beds and hardscape to deduct0 sq ft
- Piece sizeRoll, 2 by 5 ft
- Pallet coverage450 sq ft
- Topsoil to spread2 in
- Waste allowance5 %
Pallets to buy3 pallets
Sod does not keep. It is a cut plant and in warm weather it wants to be down and watered within a day of leaving the farm. 3 pallets is more than a two person crew lays in a day, so either stage the delivery or put more hands on it.
| Gross area | 1,000 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Beds and hardscape | 0 sq ft |
| Net area | 1,000 sq ft |
| With waste | 1,050 sq ft5 percent |
| Pieces needed | 10510 sq ft each |
| Pallets to buy | 345 pieces on a 450 sq ft pallet |
| Left over on the last pallet | 300 sq fta pallet does not divide |
| Sod weight | 2.89 tons5,775 lb at 5.5 lb a sq ft |
| Topsoil to spread | 6.17 cu yd2 in over the net area, order 7 because bulk soil sells by the whole yard |
| Water, one inch | 623 gal0.623 gallons a sq ft |
The material list this produces
| Sod pallets | 3 |
|---|---|
| Or sod pieces | 105 |
| Starter fertilizer, bags | 1 |
| Topsoil, cu yd | 7 |
Lawn area compared
Every small lawn size on this list, at the same piece and pallet coverage. Watch the last column rather than the first: the pallet count steps, and the square feet you pay for and do not use swings from almost nothing to most of a pallet between one size and the next.
| Lawn area | Pallets to buy | Pieces needed | Left over on the last pallet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 sq ft | 1 pallet | 6 | 397.5 sq ft |
| 100 sq ft | 1 pallet | 11 | 345 sq ft |
| 200 sq ft | 1 pallet | 21 | 240 sq ft |
| 250 sq ft | 1 pallet | 27 | 187.5 sq ft |
| 300 sq ft | 1 pallet | 32 | 135 sq ft |
| 400 sq ft | 1 pallet | 42 | 30 sq ft |
| 500 sq ft | 2 pallets | 53 | 375 sq ft |
| 600 sq ft | 2 pallets | 63 | 270 sq ft |
| 700 sq ft | 2 pallets | 74 | 165 sq ft |
| 800 sq ft | 2 pallets | 84 | 60 sq ft |
| 1,000 sq ft | 3 pallets | 105 | 300 sq ft |
What else matters here
Three pallets is where sod stops being a material and starts being perishable stock with a deadline attached.
It is a cut plant. It was harvested with its roots severed, stacked wet and warm on a pallet, and from that moment it is respiring in the dark and heating itself up. In summer the middle of a pallet can cook in two days. The rule is that it goes down and gets watered within a day of leaving the farm, and in real heat within hours.
Which makes the sequencing the whole job. Ground prepared, graded, topsoil spread and raked, irrigation checked and working, and only then the delivery booked. Not the other way round. A pallet sitting on the drive while somebody rents a tiller is a pallet that will go down yellow, and unlike almost every other building material it does not wait.
What this calculator assumes
- Sod is bought by the pallet and a pallet does not divide, so the order is rounded up to a whole pallet and the leftover is printed rather than hidden. Pallet coverage is a yard by yard number, from 400 to 600 square feet, which is why it is a field here instead of a constant.
- Waste sits at five percent rather than the ten a sheet material gets. Sod cuts around a curve with a knife and the offcut usually goes somewhere, so the loss is real but smaller.
- Weight is figured at 5.5 pounds a square foot, which is a pallet around two and a half thousand pounds. Freshly cut or wet sod runs heavier, and that is the number that matters when you decide whether it goes in a pickup or on a delivery truck.
- Topsoil is the amount to spread and grade before the sod goes down, not the amount already there. Two inches is the common starting point on a bare or stripped yard and none at all is right on ground that is already good.
- A pallet line and a piece line are both printed because yards sell sod both ways, by the pallet on a big lawn and by the piece on a patch. Only one of those two lines gets bought.
- Starter fertilizer is figured at a bag per five thousand square feet, which is where most starter products land. Read your bag rather than this line, because the spread rate is printed on it.
- The water line is one inch over the whole lawn, which is 0.623 gallons a square foot. New sod wants roughly that much every day for the first week, which is the part of a sod job people underestimate.
Questions people ask
How many pallets of sod for 1,000 square feet?
3 pallets, which is 105 pieces at 10 square feet each including five percent waste.
How long does sod last on the pallet?
About a day in warm weather and less in real heat. It is a cut plant stacked wet and warm, and it heats itself up from the middle of the pallet.
What order should a sod job go in?
Clear, grade, spread and rake the topsoil, check the irrigation works, and only then book the delivery. Sod is the last thing to arrive, not the first.
The sod calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.