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The US sells lumber by $/board foot. I want to create a project planning spreadsheet that uses Imperial or metric dimensions to calculate how many Board feet I will need to buy. If the planner is used in a country that uses metric dimensions, how is lumber purchased? Is it the actual size or a rough size? A board 3/4" X 4" X 3' = 1 board foot because the 3/4" is considered 1". The same applies to 5/8" and 7/8" lumber.

TylerH
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Ron J
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  • Spreadsheets deal with numbers... as long as **you** know your units and are consistent then it will work out what you want. If you duck up with a conversion then it’s your fault not the spreadsheet. – Solar Mike Jun 03 '21 at 18:25
  • ["A board foot is defined as a piece one inch thick (nominal) by one foot wide (nominal) by one foot long (actual) or its equivalent. For instance a 2 x 6 also equals one board foot for each foot of length."](http://www.holbrooklumber.com/attachments/calculators/Lumber-Units-Calculator.pdf) – MonkeyZeus Jun 03 '21 at 18:40
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    Does this answer your question? [What are framing dimensions like in the metric world?](https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/444/what-are-framing-dimensions-like-in-the-metric-world) – TylerH Jun 03 '21 at 20:58
  • The metric equivalent of a board foot is 2.36 liters. If there are countries where wood is priced volumetrically in some other metric unit, you can easily convert eg a cubic meter is 1000 liters. I could make up a "board meter" .. 1mx1mx1cm, which is 10 liters. I don't know if wood is sold by my "board meter" anywhere but you get the idea ..... – jay613 Jun 03 '21 at 21:09
  • I'm interested what kind of projects these are, where you can convert project requirements to wood prices by volume. Seems to simplistic. Are you running a saw mill? – jay613 Jun 03 '21 at 21:11

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The nearest equivalent would be cubic metres. That's the figure you would use to estimate how much wood you could get out of a tree of a given size.

But nobody would try to specify how many cubic metres of wood they require to build a house. The quantity surveyor would specify exactly what is needed. (The sizes would most likely be the metric equivalents of common inch sizes, for historical reasons).

Here in Europe, we tend to build our garden sheds out of wood, and our houses out of brick, stone or concrete.

Simon B
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