Conversions
Four conversions, and two of them are not conversions. Square feet cannot become cubic yards and linear feet cannot become square feet, because an area is not a volume and a length is not an area — each is missing a dimension. Every converter online answers those questions anyway, by quietly assuming the number it was not given.
These pages ask for it instead, and say why. The exact ones are exact: a yard is three feet, so a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, and that is a definition rather than a measurement.
- Cubic feet to cubic yards Divide by 27. The definition, why it is 27 and not 9, and the table for the volumes people actually order.
- Cubic yards to cubic feet Multiply by 27 — and what that means when a bag holds two cubic feet and a yard is thirteen and a half of them.
- Square inches to square feet Divide by 144, not 12. Tile sizes are quoted in inches and floors are measured in feet.
- Square feet to square yards Divide by 9. The unit carpet is priced in, and the reason a price per yard always looks cheap.
- Square yards to square feet Multiply by 9 — for turning a carpet or paving quote back into the floor you measured.
- Cubic feet to gallons One cubic foot is 7.48 US gallons. For pools, tanks and anything you have to fill with water.
- Gallons to cubic feet A gallon is 231 cubic inches. Turning a stated capacity back into a volume you can dig for.
- Cubic metres to cubic feet Multiply by 35.31 — for reading an imported spec sheet against an American supplier.
- Cubic yards to cubic metres Multiply by 0.7646. A cubic metre is nearly a third larger, and that is real money at volume.
- Square feet to cubic yards You cannot, not without a depth. What the depth does, and why every converter that answers without asking has guessed.
- Linear feet to square feet An area from a length needs a width, and it has to be the actual width — a 1x6 measures 5.5 inches.
What a conversion will not tell you
What anything weighs. A volume is geometry and it is exact; a weight needs a density for the specific material, and a cubic yard of screened topsoil against a cubic yard of traprock differ by nearly three to one. The cubic yards to tons calculator publishes twenty-seven rows of density with their sources, and the cubic yard calculator works a volume out of a shape before you get that far.