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Sod Calculator Guide
Work out how much sod to order, in the units your supplier actually sells it in.
Pieces = area × (1 + waste) ÷ coverage per piece
A 2,000 sq ft lawn with standard 2×5ft rolls (10 sq ft each) and 5% waste needs 210 rolls, or about 5 pallets at 450 sq ft each.
Order It for the Day You'll Lay It
This is the thing that separates a lawn from a very expensive compost heap. Sod is a living, harvested product with a shelf life measured in hours, not days.
Stacked on a pallet in summer it starts composting from the middle within about 24 hours — it generates its own heat, and by day two the inner rolls are yellow and dying. Lay it the day it arrives. If it must wait, unstack it in shade and keep it damp, and accept that you're already losing.
Prepare Before It Arrives, Not After
The ground work is the whole job: kill or remove the old turf, till, grade away from the house, add topsoil if you need it, and rake level. All of that must be finished before the truck comes.
Sod laid on unprepared ground looks fine for three weeks and then dies in patches, because the roots never bridge into the soil below. You'll have paid for a lawn and bought a very short-lived carpet.
Water Immediately and Absurdly
Sod needs watering within half an hour of laying, and then far more than feels reasonable for the first two weeks — the roots are severed and it can't reach anything yet.
The test is simple: lift a corner after a week. If it resists, it's rooting. If it lifts like a rug, it isn't, and it's thirsty. Most sod failures are underwatering in the first fortnight.
Waste Depends on Shape, Not Size
A plain rectangle wastes almost nothing. Curves, islands, trees and tight corners force cuts, and every cut leaves an offcut too small to use.
5% covers a simple lawn. Budget 10% or more for anything with curved edges — and running out means a second delivery of a product that won't wait for you.
It's Heavy
A pallet of sod weighs roughly 1½ to 2 tons, and more if it's wet. That matters for where the truck can get to, whether your driveway will take it, and how far you're carrying rolls by hand.
Related: grass seed calculator, topsoil calculator, fertilizer calculator.
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