Editorial policy

A 2x4 is not 2 by 4 inches, and a board foot is not a foot. Lumber has its own math, and getting it wrong at the yard counter costs money.

That is the whole reason LumberMath exists. We would rather show you one number you can trust, and exactly how we got it, than ten numbers you have to second-guess. Here is how we work.

We show our working

Our calculator pages show the formula behind the answer, so you can do the math on paper if you would rather. Where a result depends on published data, such as a standard size or a typical weight, we link the source, and we keep adding step-by-step worked examples. If our answer and yours disagree, one of us has made a mistake, and we want to know which.

We test before we publish

Our sizes come from the American Softwood Lumber Standard, and every calculator is checked against boards measured and priced by hand. Right now LumberMath has 5 calculators and 13 automatic checks. Each check is a hand-worked answer the calculator has to match exactly. They run every time the site is updated, and an update that breaks one does not go live.

We give ranges, not false precision

Stone gets wet, animals run early, lumber shrinks. Where the real world varies, we tell you the typical value, the normal range and what moves it, instead of pretending to an accuracy nobody has.

Dates mean something

The "Updated" date on a page only changes when the page itself changes. We do not bump dates to look fresh.

Ads pay the bills, not the answers

LumberMath is free because it shows ads. Advertisers never see or influence our numbers, and we do not sell links, sponsored rankings or paid reviews.

Tell us when we are wrong

If a number looks off, send us the page and the value. Real people read every message. Confirmed mistakes are fixed, the page date is updated, and if your note made a page better, we are grateful for it.

The LumberMath team