EstimatorKitOne-wall stud take-off
Stud calculator — one wall, every stud in it
A wall’s layout studs are its length over the spacing, plus one; from a length, a stud height and a spacing this counts those, then adds the pieces a hand count leaves out: the extra studs a corner takes, the backing behind a partition that ties in, and the two kings, the jacks, the rough sill and the cripples around every opening. It deducts the layout studs standing where a door is, because those get cut into cripples rather than bought twice, and it finishes with the number of boards to order — full-height studs plus the ones the short pieces are cut out of.
- 12, 16 and 24 in centers
- Corners and openings counted
- Cut list copies as text
Length is corner to corner along this one wall. 24' 6" and 7.4 m both read.
A precut is shorter than the wall on purpose: 92 5/8" plus one bottom and two top plates stacks to 97 1/8 in, which clears an 8 ft sheet of drywall with room to lift it.
Two studs make the corner and a third lies flat behind them so the inside drywall has a nailer. Solid, and it leaves a bay that insulation cannot reach.
A pair of studs set either side of where the partition lands, giving both drywall edges a nailer.
Widths and heights are the rough opening, not the door or the sash. A 6 ft 8 in prehung door is framed to 82 1/2" here — a working figure rather than a published one, and the door maker's own rough-opening figure is what to check against your own.
The depth only decides how much wall is left above the header, which is what gets cripple-framed. What that header can span is a different question, and the header table in the code your jurisdiction adopted sets it.
Buy for this wall
36 2 × 4 at 92 5/8"
- Standing full height
- 25
- Cut up into short pieces
- 11
- Plate, 16 ft sticks
- 5
- Plate offcut
- 8 lf
Length ÷ 16 + 1 gives 19. This wall takes 25 full-height studs.
The difference is 4 for 2 corners, 2 behind 1 partition and 6 king studs, less the 6 layout studs standing where an opening is. Jacks, cripples and sills are on top of that and are cut out of whole studs.
| Piece | Count | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Layout studs at 16 in on center, less 6 inside an opening | 13 | 92 5/8" |
| Three-stud corner, 2 of them | 4 | 92 5/8" |
| Two studs behind the partition, 1 of them | 2 | 92 5/8" |
| King studs, two per opening | 6 | 92 5/8" |
| Entry door — jacks | 2 | 81" |
| Bedroom window — jacks | 4 | 81" |
| Bedroom window — rough sill | 2 | 36" |
| Bedroom window — cripples under the sill | 8 | 31 1/2" |
| Plate: one bottom, two top | 5 | 16 ft |
Where the short pieces come from
- 6 at 81" — 1 out of one board
- 6 boards
- 2 at 36" — 2 out of one board
- 1 board
- 8 at 31 1/2" — 2 out of one board
- 4 boards
Nested by length with 1/8" lost to each cut — a working allowance for a full-kerf framing blade. A framer working off one pile will beat this by cutting short pieces out of the offcuts, so treat it as the count that cannot come up short.
Entry door: a doubled 2 × 12 leaves 3/8" under the top plate, which is filled with a ripped strip rather than cripple-framed.
Bedroom window: a doubled 2 × 12 leaves 3/8" under the top plate, which is filled with a ripped strip rather than cripple-framed.
Layout starts with the first stud centered 15 1/4" from the end of the wall, so the edge of a 4 ft sheet breaks on the middle of the fourth stud instead of hanging past it. Widths are the surfaced dry sizes: PS 20 surfaced dry thickness of nominal 2× lumber, and a 2 × 4 measures 3 1/2" across. IRC R602.3.2 asks for the joints in the two top plates to be offset by at least 24 in.
Counting studs
Is it length divided by 16 plus one, or plus two?
Plus one, and the one is the stud that closes the far end of the last bay. Sixteen feet at 16 inch centers is 192 divided by 16, which is 12 bays, and 12 bays are held up by 13 studs. The mistake that produces the plus-two answer is counting the corner as if it were a layout stud on top of the closing one — it is not; the corner is its own assembly, and this page counts it separately so you can see both numbers.
Why does the first stud go at 15 1/4 inches instead of 16?
So that a 4 ft sheet lands on the middle of a stud rather than hanging past it. Layout marks are the centers of the studs, and a sheet edge starting at the end of the wall reaches 48 inches, which is the center of the fourth stud only if the first one was pulled back half a stud thickness — 3/4 of an inch. Pull the tape to 15 1/4, then mark every 16 inches after that, and every sheet edge for the rest of the wall breaks on a nailing surface. At 24 inch centers the same pull puts the first mark at 23 1/4.
How many studs does a corner actually take?
Three in the traditional detail, two if you carry the drywall on clips instead. The traditional corner is two studs forming the outside angle plus a third laid flat behind them so the inside sheet of drywall has something to screw to, and the cavity behind that third stud can never be insulated from either side. The two-stud version leaves the backer out, holds the drywall edge with sheet-metal clips and lets insulation fill the corner — one stud lighter every time, which is where the advanced framing details start.
Do I take out the layout studs where the door goes?
Yes, but they do not disappear from the order — they turn into cripples. A layout mark that lands inside a rough opening is not built full height; above the header it becomes a short cripple at the same spacing, and under a window sill it becomes a short cripple there instead. This page deducts them from the full-height count and adds them back as short pieces, which is why the board total moves by less than the stud count does. Turn the deduction off if you would rather order every layout stud full length and cut them down on site.
The wall is 8 feet but the studs are 92 5/8. Where does the rest go?
Into the plates. One bottom plate and two top plates are 4 1/2 inches of lumber, so a 92 5/8 precut stands 97 1/8 inches from subfloor to the top of the wall — an inch and an eighth more than the 96 inch sheet of drywall that goes on it, which is exactly the slack you need to stand the sheet up without scuffing it. A 9 ft wall works the same way from a 104 5/8 precut, and a 10 ft wall from 116 5/8.
Layout, and the pieces that are not studs
On-center spacing is a rule about sheet goods before it is a rule about strength. Panels come 48 inches wide, drywall comes 48 inches wide, and both have to break on the middle of a stud so two sheets can share one nailing face. That is why 16 and 24 are the numbers and why 20 is not: 48 divides by both. It is also why the first mark is not at 16. Layout marks are centers, so a tape pulled to a round 16 puts the fourth stud’s center at 48 and the sheet edge 3/4 of an inch past its face, into thin air. Pull to 15 1/4 instead, mark every 16 after that, and the sheet lands on half a stud with half left for its neighbor — the whole wall, every sheet, no adjusting.
The part that ruins a lumber order is not the layout, though; it is everything the layout does not describe. A corner is not one stud, it is two or three depending on how the inside drywall gets its nailer. A partition dying into this wall needs backing whether or not a layout mark happens to be there. An opening replaces one line on the layout with a stack of six or more pieces — two kings running full height beside it, one or two jacks a side under the header, cripples above at the same spacing the wall uses, and for a window a rough sill with its own cripples underneath. The example this page opens with — 24 feet with a door and two windows — has a layout of 19 studs and takes 25 full-height ones. The other half of the problem is that the pieces are not all boards: those windows want eight cripples 31 1/2 inches long, and ordering eight studs for them instead of the four they nest into is how a small wall arrives with a pile of offcuts. So the piece count and the board count are kept apart here, and the short list is nested longest first.
One wall is the unit here on purpose. When there are four of them and a floor underneath, the plate run and the header stock are bought across the whole job rather than wall by wall: run each wall here, then add the plates up as one stock order on the linear feet calculator. Count the sheathing on the outside of the wall with the plywood calculator, and if the wall you are framing is a stair wall, the stair calculator sets the heights it has to meet before you cut a plate.