 What is a board foot a three-minute overview? In the hardwood store you're going to pay for Your good hardwood by the board foot So when you're buying red oak or you're buying maple or You're buying black walnut. They're going to charge you by the board foot This red oak cost me five dollars and ten cents per board foot now How do I figure out how many board feet I like to do that ahead of time? So I'm prepared this particular board I knew I needed eight quarters. So that's I'm going to use two inches for the eight quarters even though It's not quite two inches. So two inches this one was eight inches wide That's what I selected. There were some other ones of different sizes. I knew this would work for me So eight inches wide and then it was nine foot long and so that's a hundred and eight inches for the length So two times eight times a hundred and eight gave me one thousand seven hundred and twenty eight square inches To convert that back to board feet I divide it by a hundred and forty four and turns out that that's exactly twelve board feet But I didn't pay the store for just 12 board feet because they have a premium that they charge me for the fact that they have Giving me a straight edge and to do that. They've maybe had to cut off some excess So they charge me 12% extra So the math that they do and their favor by the way is they take my 12 board feet times 1.12 don't to get it up and then they charge me based on that Actually, they round it off In this case, they rounded it off to 14 board feet and then they charge me at five dollars and ten cents For 14 board feet. I had calculated ahead of time that this would cost me about 80 dollars Depending on the price of red oak on that day And so I felt comfortable when the guy said this be seventy eight dollars and that included sales tax So in prepared know how to calculate board feet I'll give you some links to some longer presentations about board feet so you get a better understanding I hope that next time you go into the hardwood store You will be prepared for the high price of lumber Based on the number of board feet plus the extras are going to charge you Small workshop guy signing off