Landscape Material Calculators and the Unit Virginia Jobs Are Sold In
Enter your project dimensions
Choose your material
Stand at the top of a Virginia drive with a tape and what you have is feet and inches. The product page wants cubic yards or tons, and nothing visible on the ground converts one into the other, because the conversion depends entirely on which material is going down. These tools do that step.
Cubic feet, which is what a tape measure actually gives you
Multiply length by width in feet for the footprint, then multiply by the depth converted to feet. Depth is entered in inches here and the field accepts anything from 0.25 to 24. It is the input that moves the answer most: the same pad at 4 inches takes twice what it takes at 2. Measure the depth you want after the layer is finished, not the depth of the hole.
Cubic yards, the unit soil and mulch go out in
One cubic yard fills a cube 3 feet on every side, which is 27 cubic feet, so the cubic foot figure divided by 27 gives cubic yards. Written out, the tools run cubic yards = (length ft x width ft x depth in ÷ 12) ÷ 27. Soil and mulch are ordered in that unit, and the results panel shows cubic yards, tons and cubic feet together so no conversion is left to you.
Tons, and why a yard of 21A outweighs a yard of mulch five times over
Tons come from cubic yards multiplied by the weight this site publishes for that material. Shredded mulch is about 600 lb per cubic yard, roughly 0.30 tons. Dense-graded base such as 21A is about 3,000 lb, or 1.50 tons. Washed stone such as #57 Stone runs near 2,800 lb, about 1.40 tons; river rock about 2,700 lb; screened topsoil about 2,200 lb; and RipRap is the heaviest at roughly 3,100 lb, about 1.55 tons. All of those are approximate. The consequence is practical: a 15 by 36 foot pad at 5 inches of 21A is 540 sq ft, 225 cubic feet, 8.33 cubic yards, about 12.5 tons. The identical box filled with mulch is still 8.33 cubic yards but only about 2.5 tons.
Which landscape material calculator fits a lane, a trench or a bed
Fourteen tools sit behind this page, grouped by what the layer has to do rather than by weight: nine published figures cover the fourteen, and several return the same tonnage.
- Lane and pad base. The road base calculator and the crusher run calculator for the compacted layer, and the paver base calculator for the same job under flatwork. All three convert at 1.50 tons per cubic yard, so run each at its own depth and settle the choice of product on the product page.
- Wearing course and graded stone. The gravel calculator for the surface a vehicle runs on, the stone calculator for the graded sizes by number, and the pea gravel calculator for paths and play areas. All three sit at 1.40.
- Washed stone, trenches and banks. Clean stone for a French drain through Piedmont clay goes through the stone tool at trench depth. The rip rap calculator works in layer thickness rather than a spread depth, and the river rock calculator covers beds and dry creek runs.
- Bedding and mixes. The paver sand calculator for the setting course under pavers and the sand calculator for mason and washed sand.
- Soil and beds. The topsoil calculator for lawns and finish grading, the soil calculator for planters and raised beds, the dirt calculator for making up grade, and the mulch calculator over the top.
A new drive is two of these, the base layer and the wearing course, run separately at their own depths.
Five areas, a depth between 0.25 and 24 inches, and the 5 percent tick
Choose rectangle, circle, or multiple areas up to five, which is how a turnaround that fans out at the top gets measured honestly. Enter length and width in feet, or diameter in feet for a circle. Pick the material, then decide on the optional box that adds 5 percent for compaction and spillage; there is no automatic allowance beyond that tick. Press calculate, and you can have the figures emailed to you before you open the product list and set a quantity and a delivery date. How the load arrives covers what the truck needs at the other end.
Common questions
Does the 5% box belong on a paver bedding layer as well as a lane?
Tick it wherever material will be rolled, tamped or raked out over rough ground, which covers a base course, a bedding layer under pavers and any spread over soft clay. On a decorative bed of river rock that nobody compacts, untick it. It is optional either way and nothing else adds an allowance for you.
My depth is 30 inches for a French drain. The field stops at 24.
Split it into lifts and run the tool twice, or run the trench as two entries under multiple areas at depths that add to the total. The arithmetic is linear, so two runs of 15 inches give the same volume as one run of 30 would.
Two of these tools give me the same tonnage. Have I picked the wrong one?
Probably not. Nine published weights cover the fourteen tools, so the base tools all convert at 1.50 tons per cubic yard and the washed stone tools all convert at 1.40. When two results match, the volume and the weight really are the same and the decision moves to the material: which size drains, which one locks up under traffic, and how deep the layer has to be. The product page carries that part; the calculator carries the arithmetic.
The turnaround at the top of the lane is a circle. Do I add it as a second area?
Yes. Run the straight section as a rectangle, add another area for the turnaround as a circle with its diameter in feet, and keep the depth the same across both. Up to five areas can sit in one calculation, which covers most lanes that widen, bend or end in a loop.
Priced it? It ships free.
All 24 materials in these calculators are in stock, delivered free across Virginia.