Enter your room size and pick the sheet you are buying - 4×8 or 4×12 - to get the drywall sheets, screws, joint compound and tape for the job. Sized for the boards Lowe's stocks.
Openings (deducted from walls)
Common: 2.4 / 2.7 / 3.0 / 3.6 m long × 1.2 m wide (also 0.9 and 1.35 m wide).
Enter your prices - leave any blank to skip it. The board count comes from your rooms above; for the screws, compound and tape, set the pack you're buying and the calculator works out how many. Covers the board, screws, compound and tape only; corner bead, insulation, sanding and paint are extra.
Boarded area
45.60 m²
Screws
~576
Joint compound
~29.2 kg
Joint tape
~55.4 m
This is the standard drywall calculator set up for the sheet sizes Lowe’s carries. It sizes both the boarding and the finishing from your room dimensions:
wall area = 2 × (length + width) × height
ceiling = length × width (if you board it)
sheets = ceil( (wall area + ceiling) × wastage ÷ sheet area )
screws = sheets × 32
compound = boarded area × 0.64 kg/m²
tape = boarded area × 1.2 m/m²
It treats the room as a closed box and lets the wastage allowance cover the offcuts around doors and windows - or add each opening to deduct it exactly. Boarding more than one room? Add a room for each and the sheets, screws, mud and tape total into one order. All math runs in exact metric internally, so switching units never changes the answer.
| Board | Size | Area | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.7 mm standard | 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) | 2.9 m² | Walls and ceilings in most rooms |
| 12.7 mm standard | 1.2 × 3.6 m (4 × 12 ft) | 4.3 m² | Long walls - fewer joints to tape |
| 15.9 mm Type X | 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) | 2.9 m² | Fire-rated walls, garages, ceilings |
| 12.7 mm mold-resistant | 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) | 2.9 m² | Bathrooms and damp areas |
This example follows the unit system you pick in the calculator above.
A 4 × 3 m room, 2.4 m high, ceiling boarded, with 2.4 × 1.2 m sheets and 10% wastage:
Work out the area to board - the walls (room perimeter × ceiling height) plus the ceiling if you are boarding it - then divide by the area of one sheet and add wastage. A 4 × 3 m room with 2.4 m ceilings and the ceiling boarded is about 45.6 m²; with 1.2 × 2.4 m sheets (2.9 m² each) and 10% wastage that is 18 sheets. Enter your room above for the exact count.
Lowe's stocks standard 12.7 mm (1/2 inch) drywall in 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) sheets and 1.2 × 3.6 m (4 × 12 ft) sheets, along with 15.9 mm (5/8 inch) fire-rated Type X board, flexible board for curves, and moisture- and mold-resistant board for bathrooms. The calculator defaults to the 1.2 × 2.4 m sheet; switch to the 1.2 × 3.6 m (4 × 12 ft) board for long walls where the bigger sheets cut down on joints.
Use 12.7 mm (1/2 inch) board for most walls and ceilings. Step up to 15.9 mm (5/8 inch) Type X where code calls for a fire rating - garages, walls between a house and garage, and many ceilings - and because the thicker, stiffer board sags less overhead. The sheet area is the same (2.9 m² for a 1.2 × 2.4 m board), so the calculator's sheet count holds either way; just buy the board the job requires.
Allow roughly 0.6 kg of joint compound per square metre of board for a taped three-coat finish - about one 28 kg box of all-purpose mud per 44 m² of board - and one 75 or 150 m roll of tape for a typical room. The calculator gives the compound and tape totals from your boarded area so you know how many boxes and rolls to put in the cart.
About 32 coarse-thread drywall screws fix a 1.2 × 2.4 m (4 × 8 ft) sheet to wood studs at 400 mm (16 inch) centres - a screw roughly every 300 mm in the field and 200 mm around the edges, with ceilings fixed more densely. A 1 kg box holds several hundred screws, so a small room is usually a box or two. The calculator multiplies your sheet count by 32.
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