Converting Square Feet to Square Yards

Date: 09/13/97 at 16:00:23
From: Michael Zientara
Subject: Converting square feet to square yards

Hi,

Please help me with this problem. I am not in school and haven't been 
for quite some time, and I would love to know how to change square 
feet to square yards for carpeting purposes. Fr the life of me I can 
not remember how.

Thanks,

Mike Zientara

Date: 09/13/97 at 16:49:35
From: Doctor Sarah
Subject: Re: Converting square feet to square yards

Hi Michael -

   3 feet = 1 yard
    ___
   | 1 |  1 sq. ft.  
   |___|
    ___ ___ ___
   | 1 | 2 | 3 |   1 sq. yd. =
   |___|___|___|   9 sq. ft.
   | 4 | 5 | 6 |
   |___|___|___|
   | 7 | 8 | 9 |
   |___|___|___|


So there are 9 square feet in a square yard.

For conversions, you can consult the Entisoft Units Measurement 
Conversion Calculator at

  http://entisoft.earthlink.net/scripts/unitscgi.exe   

For your question, you'd convert  yd^2  to  ft^2 .

Date: 09/13/97 at 22:24:13
From: Michael Zientara
Subject: Re: converting square feet to square yards

If I wanted to know how many square yards in a room let's say 
8 ft. by 11 ft., would the formula be 8 times 11 times 9 ? 
the formula would be 8 times 11 times 9 ?

Date: 09/14/97 at 08:26:25
From: Doctor Sarah
Subject: Re: converting square feet to square yards

Hi -

Not quite.

First let's convert 8 ft. by 11 ft. to sq. ft. Area = length x width, 
so 8 x 11 = 88 sq. ft. and that's the area of the room in sq. feet.  

Now we have to convert sq. ft. to sq. yards.  

We know that there are 9 sq. ft. in 1 sq. yd.  Stop and think for a 
minute - does that mean there are more sq. ft. or more sq. yds. in a 
given area? 

Right - more sq. ft.!  So the number of yards will be LESS.  (That 
means that MULTIPLYING by 9 to get yards would be going in the wrong 
direction.)

The number of sq. yards will be 1/9 the number of sq. ft., and you 
will DIVIDE by 9 to get it.

So 88 sq. ft. divided by 9 will give you the number of sq. yards.

Checking with Entisoft, we find:

  88 foot^2 = 9.77777777777778 yard^2 (area)

-Doctor Sarah,  The Math Forum
 Check out our web site!  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/