Unit Converters for Home Projects
Two conversion jobs come up on home projects more than all the others put together: square feet to square metres, and gallons to litres. The first appears whenever a floor plan, a listing or a supplier works in metric while your quote is in imperial; the second whenever a US product — pool chemicals, paint, a water tank — meets a metric label, or the other way round. This page collects the four converters home projects actually need: area, liquid volume, bulk volume and length. Each one works in both directions and shows the answer in every unit at once, so you never have to run the same sum twice.
Using them is deliberately simple. Type your number, choose the unit you measured in, and read the line you need. There is no submit button and no rounding by hand — every converter updates as you type, using the exact factors listed in the table further down this page. If a figure on a quote or a plan ever looks off, converting it here takes about ten seconds and settles the question before it costs money.
Unit Converters
Four converters for the units home projects actually use. Enter a value, pick the unit it is in, and every equivalent updates live.
Area converter
Enter a value to see the conversion.
Liquid volume converter
Enter a value to see the conversion.
Bulk volume converter
Enter a value to see the conversion.
Length converter
Enter a value to see the conversion.
Factors used: 1 sq ft = 0.092903 m²; 1 sq yd = 9 sq ft; 1 US gallon = 3.78541 litres; 1 yd³ = 0.764555 m³ = 27 cu ft; 1 ft = 0.3048 m = 12 in; 1 in = 2.54 cm.
Quick conversion factors
The converters above use exact factors, but the rounded versions in this table are the ones worth memorising. They are close enough for estimates, measuring and sanity checks — and when a number really matters, run it through the converter rather than doing it in your head.
| Conversion | Factor |
|---|---|
| Square feet to square metres | 1 sq ft = 0.0929 m² |
| Square metres to square feet | 1 m² = 10.764 sq ft |
| US gallons to litres | 1 US gallon = 3.785 litres |
| Cubic yards to cubic metres | 1 cubic yard = 0.765 m³ |
| Feet to metres | 1 foot = 0.3048 m |
| Inches to millimetres | 1 inch = 25.4 mm |
US vs imperial gallons
One trap deserves its own warning: the gallon is not the same size on both sides of the Atlantic. A US gallon is 3.785 litres. An imperial gallon — the one still used informally in the UK and in older Canadian contexts — is 4.546 litres, about 20% bigger. Every gallon figure on this page, and everywhere else on this site, is a US gallon. If a British source gives you gallons, either convert with 4.546 or, safer, ask for the figure in litres and convert those. A 20% dosing or ordering error is exactly the kind that stays invisible until the bill — or the green pool — arrives.
Converters in the wild
Area bites first. Floor plans for new builds and many property listings are drawn in square metres, while US flooring is priced by the square foot or the square yard. Convert the plan before you compare quotes: a 120 m² apartment has 1,292 sq ft of floor, and a quote worked out from the smaller-looking metric number goes wrong by a factor of ten somewhere if nobody converts it.
Liquid volume bites around the pool and the paint tin. Pool chemicals are dosed per 10,000 US gallons, but many pool shells are sold with metric capacities: a 40,000-litre pool holds about 10,567 gallons, and dosing it as though it were 40,000 gallons would be a fourfold overdose. Paint runs the same way — US cans are gallons and quarts, European cans are litres, and the coverage figure is printed per unit on each.
Bulk volume bites on the driveway. In the US, mulch, gravel, topsoil and concrete are sold by the cubic yard; in the UK and Australia the same materials are sold by the cubic metre or by the tonne. One cubic yard is 0.765 m³, so a five-yard order is 3.82 m³ — order five cubic metres by mistake and you have bought roughly 30% more material than the job needs. Length is the quiet one: a six-foot fence panel is 1.83 m, and metric-only suppliers list panels at 1.8 m, which sounds close — but across ten panels the small difference adds up to a visible gap.
What to calculate next
Converters give you the number in the unit you need. These calculators take the next step and turn measurements into materials and totals:
- Square Footage Calculator — work out the area of any room or shape in sq ft, sq yd and m².
- Cubic Yard Calculator — turn lengths and depths into cubic yards and metres of concrete, mulch or gravel.
- Pool Volume Calculator — get your pool's capacity in gallons and litres for dosing and heating.
Frequently asked questions
How many square feet are in a square metre?
10.764 — say 10.76 for quick maths. A square metre is bigger than a square foot by more than ten times, which is why metric areas always look deceptively small next to imperial ones: a 100 m² home is 1,076 sq ft.
How many litres are in a gallon?
3.785 litres in a US gallon. A UK imperial gallon is larger, at 4.546 litres — about 20% more — which is why it matters which gallon a source means. These converters use US gallons throughout.
How do I convert square feet to square metres quickly?
Divide by 10.764, or multiply by 0.0929 — both give the same answer. For a rough estimate in your head, dividing by 11 is close enough: 500 sq ft ÷ 11 ≈ 45 m², against the exact 46.45 m².
How many cubic feet are in a cubic yard?
27. A cubic yard is 3 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft, and 3 × 3 × 3 = 27. It is the conversion people most often get wrong by using 9 (the square-yard figure) instead.
Every calculator on this site converts imperial and metric for you — these converters are for everywhere else.