How Much Sod for 600 Square Feet?
Pallets to buy
2 pallets
600 square feet of new lawn, nothing deducted, 10 sq ft pieces, five percent waste.
At 3,465 pounds this is more than a half ton pickup should carry in one trip. Price the delivery before you price the fuel.
When the figures look right, the sod material list downloads as a real PDF with your business details on it, built inside your own browser. Nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
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 length60 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 buy2 pallets
At 3,465 pounds this is more than a half ton pickup should carry in one trip. Price the delivery before you price the fuel.
| Gross area | 600 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Beds and hardscape | 0 sq ft |
| Net area | 600 sq ft |
| With waste | 630 sq ft5 percent |
| Pieces needed | 6310 sq ft each |
| Pallets to buy | 245 pieces on a 450 sq ft pallet |
| Left over on the last pallet | 270 sq fta pallet does not divide |
| Sod weight | 1.73 tons3,465 lb at 5.5 lb a sq ft |
| Topsoil to spread | 3.7 cu yd2 in over the net area, order 4 because bulk soil sells by the whole yard |
| Water, one inch | 374 gal0.623 gallons a sq ft |
The material list this produces
| Sod pallets | 2 |
|---|---|
| Or sod pieces | 63 |
| Starter fertilizer, bags | 1 |
| Topsoil, cu yd | 4 |
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
Sixty three pieces of sod weighs 1.73 tons, and the weight is the part of a sod order that surprises people who have only ever bought bagged goods.
Sod is wet soil with grass on it, at roughly five and a half pounds a square foot, and it gets heavier if it rains on the pallet. Two pallets is more than a half ton pickup should be carrying, and it is much more than one should carry in one trip. It is also awkward weight, high up and shifting, which is worse than the same number of pounds in gravel.
So price the delivery before planning the collection. Most suppliers deliver for a flat fee that is less than two trips of fuel and a day of somebody's time, and they arrive with a truck that can set a pallet down where you want it rather than in the street. Ask them to put it on the shaded side of the house if there is one.
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 pieces of sod for 600 square feet?
63 pieces at 10 square feet each, which is 2 pallets.
How much does sod weigh?
About 5.5 pounds a square foot, so 600 square feet is 1.73 tons. It gets heavier if the pallet has been rained on.
Can I collect sod in a pickup?
Not this much. Two pallets is beyond what a half ton pickup should carry, and it is awkward shifting weight. A delivery usually costs less than two trips of fuel and a day of time.
The sod calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.