Landscape Material Calculators: Yards In, Tons Out

Choose your material

Measuring season opens the week the ground firms up, which in the Piedmont is usually weeks before the plateau in Garrett County has thawed out of it. Whenever your ground gets there, the sequence is the same: measure, pick a landscape material calculator matched to the product, and turn an area into a quantity you can order.

Why yards and tons are not the same question

A cubic yard is a fixed volume, three feet by three by three, or 27 cubic feet. A ton is a weight. The bridge between them is how heavy the material is, and across this catalogue that varies by a factor of five.

Shredded mulch is roughly 600 lb a yard, which is 0.30 tons. Blended garden soil is roughly 2,000 lb (1.00), screened topsoil roughly 2,200 (1.10) and fill dirt roughly 2,400 (1.20). River rock at 1 to 3 inch, mason and washed sand, and paver sand all sit at roughly 2,700 lb (1.35). Driveway gravel, pea gravel and the #57 and 3/4 inch stone all sit at roughly 2,800 lb (1.40). Screenings, called stone dust locally, and #4 stone are roughly 2,900 lb (1.45). Crusher run, paver base and the CR-6 that goes under most drives here are roughly 3,000 lb (1.50). RipRap is roughly 3,100 lb (1.55).

Every figure above is approximate and comes from this site's own published chart. There are nine of them behind fourteen tools, which is worth saying plainly: the gravel, pea gravel and stone tools all convert at 1.40, and the crusher run, road base and paver base tools all convert at 1.50, so choosing between tools inside a group does not move the tonnage. It moves the depth guidance you get and the product you end up ordering. Which unit you buy in is set by the listing: stone and gravel carry a per-ton unit, while soils and mulch carry a per-yard one, so read the figure that matches.

What the form asks for before it will give you a number

Pick a shape first. Rectangle covers most pads and paths, circle takes a diameter for a fire pit or a tree ring, and the multiple-areas option handles up to five at once, which is what an L-shaped drive or a yard of scattered beds needs. Lengths, widths and diameters all go in as feet.

Depth goes in as inches, anywhere between 0.25 and 24, and it should be the depth you want when the layer is finished. Choose the material next, since that selection is what sets the weight used. For anything that will be rolled or raked, tick the 5 percent allowance for compaction and spillage.

Three figures come back together: cubic yards, tons and cubic feet. The result can be emailed across as a written quote instead of being copied off the screen.

Checking the arithmetic on a parking pad

Multiply the two side lengths in feet. Turn the depth into feet by dividing the inches by 12, multiply that in, and divide the answer by 27 to land on cubic yards. Multiply those yards by the tons figure above.

Take a pad of 26 by 18 feet, laid at 5 inches of compacted CR-6, as an example. The area is 468 square feet. Five inches becomes 0.4167 feet, and 468 times that gives 195 cubic feet; dividing by 27 leaves 7.22 cubic yards. Multiplied by 1.50, that comes to roughly 10.8 tons. With the 5 percent allowance ticked, the same pad reads 7.58 cubic yards, or about 11.4 tons.

Nothing on the form moves the answer like depth does. Take the same pad down to 3 inches and it wants a little over half as much.

From CR-6 to mulch: matching the tool to the layer

Every layer gets its own run, because every layer has its own depth and its own weight.

• Base and drives: road base, crusher run, gravel
• Paver work: paver base, paver sand
• Stone and drainage: stone, rip rap
• Decorative: river rock, pea gravel, mulch
• Ground and planting: topsoil, soil, dirt, sand

Run the layers, then take the tonnage to the catalogue and choose a date. What the truck needs at the other end is the last thing to settle before you do.

Common questions