Guide
How to measure your lawn's square footage
Fertilizer, seed and lime are sold for a number of square feet. Here is how to find yours, with a tape or from the couch.
With a tape
- Split the lawn into simple shapes: rectangles, triangles, circles.
- Measure each one. A rectangle is length × width; a triangle, base × height ÷ 2; a circle, 3.14 × radius².
- Add the shapes, then subtract what is not grass: the house footprint, the driveway, the patio, the flower beds.
Example
A back yard of 60 × 40 ft is 2,400 sq ft. A 30 × 20 ft patio and shed in it make 600 sq ft. The grass is 1,800 sq ft.
From the satellite photo
Most yards are not neat rectangles. In Lawn Calc, search your address, tap each corner of a zone on the satellite photo, then draw the house, the driveway and the beds as holes: they come out of the area. Do the front yard, the back yard and the side strip as separate zones; the app adds them up, in square feet or acres, or in square meters. See Lawn size calculator.
How precise?
As precise as the photo: a few feet at the edges, which is fine for buying bags. Zoom in before placing each corner, and switch to an older photo if trees hide the edge.
