How Many Board Feet In a 4 4 Board 8 Inches Wide 10 Feet Long
6.667 board feet
- Rough 4/4 (1" thick)
- Width: 8"
- Length: 10 ft
Methodboard feet = (thickness x width x length in feet) / 12, using the ROUGH thickness before surfacing.
A hardwood board sold by the board foot is priced on this rough figure, even though it will finish thinner after surfacing.
A rough 4/4 board, 8" wide and 10' long, contains 6.667 board feet — computed at the full 1" ROUGH thickness the quarter system describes, not the roughly 13/16" it will measure once it's surfaced on both faces.
Why this one specifically
Hardwood is priced off this rough figure even though it finishes thinner, because the planer takes real thickness off both faces and someone has to absorb that loss — on a rough-sawn order it's folded straight into the board-foot tally instead of showing up later as a separate surfacing line. Someone pricing a hardwood order against a plan drawn in finished dimensions needs to reason in the rough figure first, then account for the surfacing loss separately.
What moves the number
This assumes the board is a true 8" wide and the full 1" rough thick across its whole length — real rough-sawn boards vary in width board to board and are often tallied at their actual measured width rather than a single assumed number, which is why hardwood board-foot totals on an invoice rarely match a quick per-board estimate exactly.