In school, I was pretty good at math, but as soon as I no longer needed math credits, I was quick to abandon it. I’ve regretted it ever since.  Over the last year or so I’ve been practicing doing math/arithmetic in my head as often as possible and started trying to figure out math problems in everyday situations. I’ve never bothered figuring out square footage (not difficult, length x width), just never had a reason yet, but I took it a step further today to figure out how much snow I shoveled when I had to take care of the 8 inches that fell today.

First I had to make as good of a guess as possible for how long the path was that I dug, and include the porch as well. I estimated about 200 feet from the house to the road, 2 feet wide and an average of 9 inches deep, some 6 inches, some 18, but most 8. The, I went online and found out how much powdery snow weighs. This can’t possibly be very accurate, but based on every shovel load I swung.. I won’t disagree, it’s heavy. It said that a square foot of powdery snow weight 7lb. I assume by square foot is actually means 12x12x12 rather than just 12×12, otherwise, it could be an inch deep..so… I decided that a 9 inch deep area of snow, rather than 12 square would be 5lbs (eh?). So, this is what I found and adapted to my needs:

 

• Write the equation to find what percentage 5lbs is of 7lbs, which algebraically is: 5 = X/100 7, since percentage is how much per 100. Solve the equation by isolating X. Divide each side by 7. Now the equation reads: 5/7=X/100 (7/7). Reduce: .714 = X/100. Multiply each side by 100 to get .715=X/100*100. Solve: X=71.4 percent. Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how_8600626_divide-square-feet.html

 

 

200ft x 2ft wide = 400 square feet, so like, a tiny apartment. Then to figure out how much that all weighs if it’s 9 inches deep..I came up with , based on the above malarkey, that there is 5lbs per 71% of a square foot. So, bear with me because I’m probably wrong – 3200lbs – 929(29%) = 2,271lbs.

Checked with one person, must be right.