Wall framing calculator
Show the working — with your numbers
This is a count of sticks and sheets from the layout you describe. It does not choose the stud spacing, size a header, decide whether a wall is bearing, or say what a member will carry — those come from your plans, your code and, where it matters, an engineer. Check the count against the layout before you order.
Describe one wall — its length, height, stud spacing, the corners it makes and the openings in it — and you get the whole lumber list: field studs plus the corner and opening studs, plate boards by the length you buy, the linear header stock, any blocking, and the sheathing sheets with waste. The stud calculator does the stud-and-plate count on its own; this page carries the rest of the wall with it.
Worked example
A 24 ft wall, 8 ft high, at 16 in centres, with two corners and one 36 in door. The field: 24 ft is 288 in, and 288 ÷ 16 = 18 bays, so 19 field studs. Two corners at two extra each is 4; the door takes a king and a jack each side, 4 more. That is 27 studs. Plates: a double top and a bottom is three runs of 24 ft = 72 lin ft, and in 16-foot stock each run needs two boards — 6 boards. The header spans the 36 in opening plus a 1½ in jack each side: 39 in of header stock. Sheathing: 24 × 8 = 192 ft², ÷ 32 ft² a sheet = 6 sheets, × 1.10 for waste = 6.6, so buy 7.
The metric wall: 7.2 m long, 2.4 m high, 400 mm centres, two corners and a 900 mm door. 7,200 ÷ 400 = 18 bays, so 19 field studs, and the same 4 + 4 extras make 27 studs. Three plate runs of 7.2 m is 21.6 linear metres — in 4.8 m stock, two boards a run, 6 boards. The header is 900 + 2 × 38 = 976 mm. Sheathing: 7.2 × 2.4 = 17.28 m² ÷ 2.98 m² a 1220 × 2440 sheet = 5.8, × 1.10 = 6.4, so buy 7.
On the job
A garage: four walls, one big door. Run each wall through on its own — the tool does one wall at a time, because each wall has its own corners and openings. Two 24 ft walls and two 20 ft walls at 16 in: the 24s give 19 field studs each, the 20s give 16 (240 ÷ 16 = 15 bays). Put the two corners on each wall as yours and you will count every corner twice; put them on the long walls only and the short walls get none. Either is fine as long as you do not do both. The 16 ft overhead door on a 20 ft wall is one opening with a 192 in RO (4,877 mm); the header stock is 195 in (4,953 mm) with a jack each side, and what that header is made of is the engineer's line on the drawing, not this page's.
Studs that land in an opening are not wasted. The field count runs the layout straight through the door as if it were not there. In the wall, the stud that would have stood in the opening becomes the cripples above the header, so the count already covers them. That is why the extras field is for the odd thing — a backer for a cabinet, a post in the wall — not for cripples.
Buying by the lift. The yard sells studs in bundles and rounds the plates to whatever lengths are on the rack. A takeoff of 27 studs becomes 28 or 30; six 16-footers of plate might be cheaper as four 24s if the rack has them and the breaks still land on studs. The numbers here are what the wall needs; how they map onto what the yard stocks is a phone call.
What went wrong?
Quick referencefor a wall takeoff
- Field studs
- (wall in inches ÷ spacing), rounded up, + 1
- Per opening
- 2 × (kings + jacks per side) — cripples come out of the field studs
- Header length
- RO + 2 × jacks per side × stud thickness (1½ in dressed for a 2×)
- Plate runs
- 1 + top plates; each run bought in whole boards
- A 4 × 8 sheet
- 32 ft² · a 1220 × 2440 sheet is 2.98 m²
- Wall area
- length × height — openings usually left in for sheathing
- Metric spacing
- 400 mm ≈ 16 in · 600 mm ≈ 24 in · 38 mm ≈ 1½ in stud
Waste & overagewhat to add, and why
- Framers order about 5% extra studs for crook and wane, plus one plate length per wall for the joint offsets — this tool counts the pieces, so the margin goes on the order, not into a field.
- Sheathing carries 10% on a plain wall and more with lots of windows; the waste field on the sheathing covers it, and sheets come in lifts.
- Buy header stock in the next standard length up from the total, and one extra piece — a header cut short cannot be stretched.
Mistakes to catchbefore you order
- Typing the stud length as the wall height — the tool's height field is the whole wall, sole plate to top of top plate, and it works the studs out from it. Type the length you cut and every stud comes up short by the plates.
- Forgetting that each opening needs kings and jacks on both sides; a wall with three windows is six kings and six jacks before the cripples.
- Counting corners on both walls that meet: a corner is one set of extra studs, entered once.
What an inspector looks forthe building inspector, at the framing call
On this part of the job
- Header size and the bearing under each end — how many jack studs, and whether they land on something solid all the way down.
- King and jack studs at every opening, and the cripples above and below, against the framing detail.
- Corners and intersections framed so there is backing for the finish and room for insulation where the drawing wants it.
- Sheathing: panel layout, edge support at every panel edge, and the nailing pattern at edges and in the field — the pattern comes from the drawing or the code, and it does get counted.
- Hold-downs, straps and shear-wall details where the engineering calls for them, installed with the fasteners they were specified with.
- Top-plate splices, and that a bearing point above lines up with something below.
Have this ready
- The framing plan and any shear-wall or hold-down schedule.
- The nailing schedule, and a nail from each gun so the size can be checked.
- Openings marked with their rough sizes, so a header can be read off the wall.
Every figure an inspector measures against comes from the code your jurisdiction has adopted, the stamped drawing, or the manufacturer's printed instructions — so none of them are printed here. Look the number up in your own book, type it into the tool, and the arithmetic is yours.
The formula
studs = ⌈L ÷ s⌉ + 1 + corners × per corner + openings × 2 × (kings + jacks) + extras
Plates are the wall length once per run, and each run is bought in whole boards. Header stock is the rough-opening widths plus the jacks under them. Sheathing is the wall face divided by the sheet face, with the waste on top and the answer rounded up to a whole sheet.
What this tool assumes
Everything that varies is a field: the spacing, how many extra studs a corner takes, how many kings and jacks frame an opening, the stud thickness, the number of top plates, the plate stock length and the sheet size. The only fixed idea is the fencepost rule — bays plus one — and that cripples come out of the field count. The defaults are common practice for dimensional lumber and are labelled as such; change any of them to match your stock and your plans.
Questions
- How much lumber do I need to frame a wall?
- Count the field studs (wall length ÷ spacing, rounded up, plus one), add the extras for corners and openings, then the plates (wall length × the number of plate runs), the header stock over each opening, any blocking, and the sheathing sheets for the wall face. This tool does each of those from the wall you describe and totals them into one takeoff.
- How many studs does a window or door add?
- Each side of an opening gets a king stud running full height and one or more jack studs under the header, so a plain opening with one king and one jack per side adds four studs. Cripples above the header and below a sill come out of the field studs that would have run through the opening, so they are not added again — count anything unusual in the extras field.
- How long is a header?
- It spans the rough opening plus the jacks it bears on: RO width + 2 × jacks per side × stud thickness. A 36-inch opening with one 1½-inch jack each side needs a 39-inch header (a 900 mm opening with 38 mm jacks, 976 mm). This tool gives the LENGTH of header stock; the size (2×6, 2×10, an LVL) is a structural call from your plans, and the page never suggests one.
- Do I subtract the openings from the sheathing?
- Usually not. Sheathing is run over the opening and cut out afterwards, and the cut-out is rarely a useful piece. The tool sheets the full wall face and adds your waste margin; if you are sheeting around a big garage door and want a tighter count, drop the waste to zero and knock a sheet off by hand.
- Why are the plates counted per run instead of by total length?
- Top-plate breaks have to land on a stud, and the bottom plate wants a joint that lands on one too, so you cannot always use the offcut from one run to finish another. Buying whole boards per run — 24 ft of wall in 16-foot stock is two boards per run (7.2 m in 4.8 m stock, the same) — is what the yard ticket ends up saying anyway. The linear total is shown beside it if you buy by the foot.
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