Board foot calculator for a 1x6x8 board
The most common board people quote at the lumber yard is the nominal 1 in × 6 in × 8 ft fence board — a fence picket, a trim board, or a utility shelf plank. That board is exactly (1 in × 6 in × 8 ft) ÷ 144 ≈ 0.33 bf. The widget at the top of this page already runs that math on first paint, so the answer populates before you touch a key — dial in any thickness, width, length, or piece count and the same 144-divisor formula updates.
How the widget produces board feet on first paint
The widget opens on a nominal 1×6×8 board with 1 piece and lands 0.33 bf per piece (the per-piece figure rounds to 3 decimal places, the total rounds to 2). Change Pieces to 50 and the total row walks up to 16.67 bf — that is the canonical bundle size a small fence run or a dozen trim boards walks out of the store with. Change Length to 10 ft and the per-piece figure becomes 0.42 bf; change Width to 8 in and the per-piece figure becomes 0.44 bf. The same divisor of 144 stays in place the whole time, so the only knob you ever tune is your lumber.
Board feet vs running feet
The single most-confused pairing in lumber take-offs is board feet (bf) vs running feet (rf, also called lineal feet / linear feet / lf). They measure different things:
- Board feet (bf) — volume. Nominal thickness × nominal width × length in feet ÷ 144. One bf = 144 in³ of wood. Pricing line of last resort at every yard.
- Running feet (rf / lf) — length. The board's long-axis distance and nothing else. A 1×6×8 and a 1×12×8 are both 8 running feet long; the 12-in board contains twice as many bf.
Use bf when the yard is billing by volume (framing lumber, hardwood, plywood in some regions) and rf when the bid line is priced by the stick (sheathing strips, trim boards, pipe insulation). The widget above reports bf. The studs calculator reports rf for the framing package around that lumber.
Board feet for common 2x lumber
The four framing members people sticker-cut most often — 2×6, 2×8, 2×10, 2×12 at a 10 ft length — share one divisor and only differ in their nominal width. Plug them into the widget above and the per-piece row populates without you doing any hand math:
- 2×6×10 — ≈ 0.83 bf per piece. The standard deck joist; count comes off the deck framing plan.
- 2×8×10 — ≈ 1.11 bf per piece. Deck rim joists, floor joists on shorter spans.
- 2×10×10 — ≈ 1.39 bf per piece. Deck beams on mid-sized builds.
- 2×12×10 — ≈ 1.67 bf per piece. Stair stringers, long-span deck beams.
The 2×4×8 (the residential wall stud) lands at ≈ 0.44 bf per piece and is the most-billed single board on the planet. Use the studs calculator for the count first, then come back to this widget for the bf total of the same studs.
Nominal vs actual (surfaced) dimensions
The "2×4" label is a nominal size — the rough-sawn board before surfacing was 2 in × 4 in. After planing, the same board is closer to 1.5 in × 3.5 in. Every stock profile in the widget mirrors industry surfacing:
- 1 in nominal — actually 0.75 in thick (the 1×6 trim board).
- 2 in nominal — actually 1.5 in thick (every 2× framing member).
- 4 in nominal (4×4 posts) — actually 3.5 in × 3.5 in.
The widget applies the NOMINAL formula — that is how yards price and how framing plans are drawn up. If you need the surfaced volume (rare for billing, occasionally useful for fitting a board into a precisely-machined pocket), edit the T and W fields after picking the matching stock profile so the math re-runs at the real dimensions.
From board feet to a project bid
Once you know the per-piece bf and the total bf, the next move is to size the framing package the lumber hangs on. For a typical wall, start with the studs calculator, pick stud spacing, add doors and windows as rough openings, then come back to this widget for the total bf of the same lumber package. For a deck, the deck calculator gives you board count, joist count, and beam count from the same starting dimensions — and the board feet on this widget plus the sheathing linear feet from deck/studs together close the lumber take-off into a single yard-ready list.