How Many Board Feet In a 2x8x10
9.063 board feet
- Actual size: 1.5" x 7.25" (nominal 2x8")
- Length: 10 ft
Methodboard feet = (thickness x width x length in feet) / 12, using the ACTUAL dressed dimension.
Using the nominal 2x8" number instead of the actual dimension would overstate this by a meaningful margin — see /reference/nominal-vs-actual-2x4/.
A 10-foot 2x8 contains 9.063 board feet (9 1/16, exactly 9.0625) — the actual figure includes that extra sixteenth because the actual width, 7.25", doesn't divide as cleanly into the formula at 10 feet as it does at 8 feet, where the 2x-at-8-foot family lands on whole or simple-fraction numbers more often.
Why this one specifically
2x8 at 10 feet is common floor-joist stock for moderate spans, and the fractional result here is a useful reminder that board-foot totals on a real cut list rarely come out to tidy numbers — a full framing takeoff needs to carry these fractions through the sum rather than rounding each line item before adding, or the rounding error compounds across a long list.
What moves the number
As always, this is built from the actual 1.5" x 7.25" dressed dimension, not the nominal 2" x 8" — using the nominal figure would overstate the true volume the same 1.5x-range overstatement that applies to any nominal-versus-actual dimensional lumber calculation.
Compare against the 8-foot length pattern at a different width, or the 2x10x10 for the next width up at the same 10-foot length, and run other lengths through the board foot calculator.