The Plate Board Cost for a Room calculator computes the cost of plate boards required for a room based on the length of the four walls and whether the top plate is doubled or single and on the unit price of the boards. Note: top plates are often doubled for load bearing walls. The user can choose from a list of standard board lengths with a default of 10 feet.
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose your preferred units and enter the following:
- (l) Length of Room
- (w) Width of Room
- (bL) Length of Lumber used for Plate Boards
- (TP) Single or Doubled Top Plates (double for strength)
- (uP) Unit Price of Boards (See Unit Pricing below)
Plate Board Cost (TC): The Cost of the Plate Boards required are computed and their cost is returned in U.S. dollars. However, this can be automatically converted into other currency units via the pull-down menu.
To compute the number of plate boards needed to frame a room, CLICK HERE.
General Information
Plate boards are the top and bottom boards of a wall. They are used as the anchors to which the studs are nailed. For non-load bearing walls, a single plate on the top can suffice. However, a double top plate is required for any wall that bears a load (weight). It provides additional span strength between the studs. If you are adding a wall to an existing structure, that typically means that it is not a load bearing wall, but simply a wall used to divide an area (e.g. new room in a basement).
Unit Pricing
You should used the pricing of boards that is truly available to you. However, a recent inquiry on the Internet for lumber shows the following prices for boards that could be used as plate boards. These values could be used in the unit pricing (uP) above.
- The sampled price of a 2x4x8 is $4.02
- The sampled price of a 2x4x10 is $7.8
- The sampled price of a 2x4x12 is $8.69
- The sampled price of a 2x4x16 is $13.19
The prices above are in U.S. dollars.