Landscape Material Calculator: Yards In, Ohio Tons Out

Choose your material

The decision behind most visits here is not really how much, it is which unit the checkout is going to ask for. A landscape material calculator on this site gives you cubic yards, tons and cubic feet at once, because 304 limestone for a farm lane is bought by the ton while the topsoil going over the same yard is bought by the yard, and the two numbers are nowhere near each other.

A cubic yard is a 3-foot cube; the tonnage depends on the stone

A cubic yard fills a space 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. Getting there is the same arithmetic every time: length in feet times width in feet, times depth in inches divided by 12, all divided by 27.

Tons are where materials part company, though not as often as fourteen tools would suggest. The published figures, by family: shredded mulch about 600 lb a cubic yard (0.30 tons); blended garden soil about 2,000 (1.00); screened topsoil about 2,200 (1.10); dry fill dirt about 2,400 (1.20); river rock and the mason, washed and paver sands about 2,700 (1.35); the #57, #67, 3/4 inch, pea and driveway gravels about 2,800 (1.40); screenings, #4 stone and railroad ballast about 2,900 (1.45); the 411 and 304 aggregates and paver base about 3,000 (1.50); and RipRap about 3,100 (1.55).

Mulch against base stone is the clearest case: the same volume, five times the weight, and a general calculator that assumes one density will misstate the tonnage on almost every Ohio driveway order. But nine figures cover fourteen tools. Three of them share 1.40 and three share 1.50, so a tonnage taken from the gravel tool and the same tonnage taken from the stone tool are the same number. The fourteen are worth having because the depth and the job differ, not because the weights all do.

Which unit the product page is going to charge in

Stone, gravel and sand sell by the ton. Soil, fill dirt and mulch sell by the yard. Every tool shows both figures, so there is nothing to convert by hand, but it is worth knowing which number the product pages will use before you pick a quantity.

Rectangles, circles and the five-area turnaround

Measurements go in as a rectangle, a circle, or up to five areas added together, which is what an odd-shaped turnaround usually needs. Length and width go in feet, diameter in feet for a circle, and depth in inches anywhere from 0.25 to 24. Pick the material, tick the optional box to add 5 percent for compaction and spillage, and the result comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet. Anything you want to keep can be emailed to you from the results panel.

Fourteen tools, and the Ohio job each one is built for

• Drives and pads in two layers: road base for the compacted layer underneath and crusher run for the dense graded course over it. Both sit on the same 1.50 tons a yard, so run each at its own depth rather than treating the pair as one number.
• Resurfacing a drive that already has something firm under it: the gravel calculator, which is one layer rather than half of a build-up.
• Clean stone by number, ballast and screenings: the stone calculator.
• Pavers, in two separate runs: paver base for the compacted layer and paver sand for the bedding inch above it.
• Drainage and erosion: rip rap for banks and culvert outlets.
• Beds, lawns and grading: topsoil, soil, dirt, mulch and sand.
• Decorative cover: river rock and pea gravel.

Depth is where an Ohio estimate drifts

Area is easy to measure and depth is easy to guess, which is why estimates go wrong at the depth field. A 22 by 8 ft strip laid 6 inches deep is three times the tonnage of the same strip at 2. On slow-draining till and lake-plain clay the honest depth is usually the deeper end of a range, because the layer has to lift the surface clear of water that sits there into spring. Check the depth guidance on the product page before you commit the number, then take the tonnage to that page, set a quantity and a date, and read the drop-spot notes.

Common questions