From Yards to Tons: Material Calculators for Connecticut Lots
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The number people get wrong on an older lot here is almost never the length. It is the depth. Ledge sits close to the surface across much of this state, so four inches of planned excavation can turn into two at one end of a pad and six at the other, and the order moves with it. Push a steel bar down in several spots, settle on a depth you believe, then bring it to the tools below.
Depth is the figure that doubles an order, not the tape along the drive
Volume scales straight off depth, which makes it the most expensive place to guess. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet: spread three inches deep it covers roughly 108 square feet, at two inches it stretches to about 162, at four it drops to 81, and a trench a foot deep swallows a whole yard every 27 square feet. Divide 27 by the depth in feet and you have the coverage for any figure you care to test.
That is also why a patio at two inches and the same patio at four are two different orders rather than a rounding argument, and why probing for ledge before ordering is worth the twenty minutes.
The same hole weighs 600 lb as mulch and 3,100 lb as armor stone
Volume only gets you halfway, because most of this catalogue changes hands by the ton. The published weights per cubic yard, lightest first: shredded mulch about 600 lb, blended garden soil about 2,000, screened topsoil about 2,200, mason and washed sand about 2,700, trap rock and the #57 and 3/4 inch sizes about 2,800, stone dust about 2,900, crusher run and processed gravel about 3,000, and RipRap about 3,100. Those are eight or nine figures depending on how you count, spread across fourteen tools, so a good many of the tools convert identically. Processed gravel and crusher run land on the same 1.50; pea stone reads the same as #57; the sands read the same as river rock. What genuinely differs between those tools is the depth each material is placed at, which is the reason the sections here are arranged by job.
Take a 20 by 10 bed at three inches. That is 200 square feet at 0.25 feet, so 50 cubic feet, or 1.85 cubic yards. Filled with mulch it comes to roughly 0.56 tons. Filled with crusher run it is about 2.78 tons. Identical hole, five times the weight on the ticket, which is why the material selector exists at all, even though it is depth rather than density that separates most of the tools from each other.
The arithmetic behind the number, in case you want to check it on paper
Cubic yards come from length in feet times width in feet times depth in inches divided by 12, all divided by 27. Tons are those cubic yards multiplied by the weight above. Nothing is hidden in the tool, and it is the same calculation used if you read your measurements out to somebody.
Entry is by rectangle, by circle using the full diameter, or by adding up to five separate areas, which is what an L-shaped dooryard or a drive that widens at the barn usually needs. Dimensions go in as feet and depth as inches, anywhere between 0.25 and 24. Choose the material, and tick the option that adds 5% for compaction and spillage if the course is going to be rolled or shoveled about. The result comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, and there is an option to email the estimate to yourself if you want it beside your own figures later.
Fourteen tools, because the depth advice varies as much as the weight
The estimator on this page handles any of the listed materials. The individual tools go further, carrying the depths and coverage notes that belong to one material and one kind of job: gravel, stone, crusher run, road base, pea gravel, river rock, sand, paver base, paver sand, topsoil, soil, dirt, mulch and rip rap.
A patio wants two of them, one for the compacted course and one for the bedding sand, sized separately. Once the tonnage is settled, open the material on the product list and set the quantity, the delivery date and the delivery ZIP code there. What happens after that covers the drop itself.
Common questions
My drive bends and widens. Which shape do I use?
Break it into rectangles that do not overlap and use the multiple-areas mode, which takes up to five. Run the length down the middle of a curve and average the width across three or four points. More than five pieces means running the tool twice and adding the results.
Should I tick the 5% option?
It starts ticked. Leave it on for anything that will be compacted or shoveled about, which covers processed gravel and stone dust; the crusher run calculator uses 10% instead. For a decorative bed of river rock that is simply raked level, the plain figure is usually close enough.
The result is between two tonnages. Which way do I round?
Toward the larger figure for a base course, since a thin lift is the usual reason a base lets go after a winter of freeze and thaw here. For decorative stone, round down and top up later if you want to, because leftover river rock has a habit of sitting behind the shed for years.
Why does the same patio need different depths for stone dust and for a base?
Because they do different jobs. A bedding layer is thin and level by design, while the compacted course under it has to carry load and stay intact through repeated thaws. Check the individual material calculator, which lists the depths that suit each use.
Priced it? It ships free.
All 24 materials in these calculators are in stock, delivered free across Connecticut.