In order to calculate pounds per square foot you just need to do some simple math. Simply take the area (in square feet) you want to use as a measurement and divide the number of pounds you want to place on the area by that number.
So if you had a 48 sq ft platform and you put 24lbs on that platform, you would take 24 divided by 48 to get the pounds per square foot which would equal 0.5 lbs per square foot.
Let’s say we want to find the reverse and know how many pounds we can place on a particular area given pounds per square foot.
If you’ve got a standard 4×8 sheet of board that has a pounds per square foot of 2.5 lbs, we take the pounds per square foot multiplied by the square feet (32 sq ft in this case).
And 2.5 multiplied by 32 would give us 80 pounds that we can place on that area.
It’s very simple math, but knowing how many pounds per square foot you need can be a little more complicated.
