Cubic Yards, Tons and Which One New York Yards Sell In

Choose your material

A cubic yard and a ton get used as though they were the same thing, and they are not. A cubic yard is a volume, a cube three feet on each side, and it is what your tape measure produces. A ton is a weight, and it is what a dump truck body and most aggregate orders are counted in. The conversion between them is the material itself, and on the same patio that difference is large: shredded mulch runs about 600 lb per cubic yard on this site's published figures, crusher run about 3,000 lb. The same hole, five times the weight.

Which unit your order lands in

Stone, gravel and sand are sold by the ton here. Soil, fill and mulch are sold by the cubic yard. Every calculator returns cubic yards, tons and cubic feet together, so there is no converting to do by hand; check the product page for the unit that product is actually ordered in and read that figure off the result.

On the ton side: driveway and walkway gravel, pea gravel at 3/8 inch and the graded crushed sizes at #57 and 3/4 inch are each about 2,800 lb a cubic yard, or 1.40 tons. Stone dust and screenings are about 2,900 lb (1.45). Crusher run, Item 4 and paver base are about 3,000 lb (1.50). River rock at 1 to 3 inch and the mason, washed and paver sands are about 2,700 lb (1.35). RipRap and stone fill are the heaviest at about 3,100 lb (1.55). On the yard side: fill dirt about 2,400 lb (1.20), screened topsoil about 2,200 (1.10), blended garden soil about 2,000 (1.00) and shredded mulch about 600 (0.30).

All figures are approximate and are this site's own published weights. There are nine of them behind fourteen tools, which is the part worth knowing before you choose one: the gravel, pea gravel and stone tools return the same tonnage as each other, and so do the crusher run, road base and paver base tools. What separates those tools is the depth each job is run at, not the density.

Running the formula on a 12 by 40 ft Item 4 drive

Volume comes from area and depth. Multiply length by width in feet, multiply by depth in inches divided by 12, and you have cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards, then multiply by the tons-per-yard figure above.

Cubic yards = (length ft x width ft x depth in / 12) / 27

Tons = cubic yards x tons per yard

Depth swings the answer more than people expect. A 9 by 7 ft landing at 3 inches takes half the stone the same landing takes at 6, so settle the depth before anything else. As a worked check, a 12 by 40 ft drive at 4 inches of Item 4: 12 x 40 = 480 sq ft, 480 x 4 / 12 = 160 cu ft, 160 / 27 = 5.9 cu yd, and 5.9 x 1.50 = 8.9 tons.

Setting up an L-shaped drive or a round Finger Lakes fire pit

Each tool takes a rectangle, a circle by diameter, or up to five separate areas totaled in one go, which is how a drive with a parking spur off it gets measured. Lengths, widths and diameters go in feet; depth goes in inches, between 0.25 and 24. Choose the material, because the tonnage depends on it, and tick the 5% extra for compaction and spillage on anything that will be packed down. Results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, and there is an option to have the estimate emailed to you.

Fourteen tools, from Item 4 tonnage to paver sand

Fourteen calculators cover the range. Gravel, crusher run and road base handle drives, lanes and pads, which in New York means Item 4 under a surface course. Stone covers the graded sizes, pea gravel and river rock the decorative work, and rip rap the bank and shoreline tonnage. Paver base and paver sand size the two layers under a patio separately. Topsoil, soil, dirt, sand and mulch take the rest.

Run each layer through its own tool, then order the products together from the full catalogue. What the truck needs at the drop is the last thing to settle before the date is fixed.

Common questions