How Many Board Feet In a 2x10x10
11.563 board feet
- Actual size: 1.5" x 9.25" (nominal 2x10")
- Length: 10 ft
Methodboard feet = (thickness x width x length in feet) / 12, using the ACTUAL dressed dimension.
Using the nominal 2x10" number instead of the actual dimension would overstate this by a meaningful margin — see /reference/nominal-vs-actual-2x4/.
A 10-foot 2x10 contains 11.563 board feet (exactly 11.5625) — heavy enough in board-foot terms that a stack of these for a header or beam application is worth totaling carefully rather than estimating, since even a small per-piece rounding error multiplies fast across a beam built from several laminated 2x10s.
Why this one specifically
2x10 at this length is common header and beam-component stock, often bought in matched sets to be face-nailed or bolted together into a built-up beam — the board-foot total across the whole set, not just one piece, is usually the number that actually matters for costing the job.
What moves the number
This uses the actual 1.5" x 9.25" dressed dimension; figuring it from the nominal 2" x 10" would overstate the true volume, the same nominal-versus-actual gap that applies across every dimensional lumber size this site tracks. For a built-up beam of several laminated 2x10s, multiply this per-piece figure by the ply count before pricing, rather than pricing one piece and scaling the dollar total at the end.
Compare against the 2x8x10 for the width step below, or the 2x12x12 for the largest common beam-stock size, and run other lengths through the board foot calculator.