Landscape Material Calculators, Grouped by the Texas Job
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The error that lands in the inbox most often is a tonnage worked out with the wrong tool. Someone measures a bed correctly, runs it through a general gravel estimate, and orders mulch by that number. The volume was right and the weight was five times out.
Why one estimate cannot cover mulch and crusher run
Volume is the easy half. A cubic yard is a cube three feet on every side, no matter what fills it. Weight is where materials part company, and bulk products are sold by the ton, so weight is what you are actually buying.
The published weights, lightest first: shredded mulch about 600 lb a cubic yard, or 0.30 tons; blended garden soil about 2,000 (1.00); screened topsoil about 2,200 (1.10); fill dirt about 2,400 (1.20); river rock at 1 to 3 inch and the mason, washed and paver sands about 2,700 (1.35); crushed stone at #57 or 3/4 inch, driveway gravel and pea gravel about 2,800 (1.40); screenings, #4 stone and ballast about 2,900 (1.45); crusher run, road base and paver base about 3,000 (1.50); rip rap and armor stone about 3,100 (1.55).
Top to bottom, that is a factor of five. Inside it the figures repeat: nine of them cover the fourteen tools, with three apiece sitting on 1.40, on 1.50 and on 1.35. Two tools from the same group hand back the same tonnage for the same hole, so the reason to open one rather than the other is the depth the layer is built to and the job it is doing. The sections below are grouped on exactly that.
Base, ranch roads and anything that carries a load
Start here for pads, lanes, laydown yards and driveway rebuilds on ground that moves. The Road Base calculator covers Flex Base, the state's default base material; the Crusher Run calculator covers the crushed limestone base under most drives; and the Gravel calculator handles surfacing courses on a lane that already has something firm underneath. Base work is measured compacted, so decide the finished depth first; the Road Base and Crusher Run calculators add ten percent for compaction by default.
Water: trench drains, banks and stock tank edges
The Stone calculator is the one for #57, three-quarter inch, screenings and ballast, which covers most French drain and slab-edge work through clay. For a bank, a channel or a culvert outfall that flash runoff has been cutting into, the Rip Rap calculator uses the heaviest published figure, so a small-looking area can still be a serious load.
Patios, paths and the two layers under pavers
A paver build is two calculations, not one. The Paver Base calculator sizes the compacted layer and the Paver Sand calculator sizes the bedding above it. For loose surfaces, the Pea Gravel calculator covers play areas and patios, and the Sand calculator covers mason and washed sand for bedding, boxes and mixes.
Lawns, beds and low ground on clay
For a lawn going in over black gumbo, the Topsoil calculator handles seeding, sod and finish grading. The Soil calculator is for raised beds and planters, the Mulch calculator for beds and tree rings through the dry months, and the Dirt calculator for filling holes and bringing low ground up before anything structural goes on it. Decorative beds and dry creeks are the River Rock calculator.
Measuring an odd shape and turning the answer into an order
Every tool takes the same three inputs: a shape, its dimensions in feet, and a depth in inches between 0.25 and 24. Rectangle wants length and width, Circle wants a diameter, and Multiple areas stacks up to five pieces, which is how an L-shaped drive with a turnaround gets measured properly rather than averaged. The arithmetic is length times width times depth in inches divided by twelve, then divided by twenty-seven for cubic yards, then multiplied by the material's tons per yard.
Results come back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, and there is a button to send the estimate to your own inbox. From there, open the product page for the material, set your quantity and date, and enter the delivery ZIP at checkout. What the truck needs to get in is worth checking before you choose where the load goes. If the depth is the part you are unsure of, the product page for each material carries the depths that suit the job it is for.
Common questions
Which tool do I use if I am pricing two materials against each other for the same path?
Put the same length, width and depth into both calculators. The cubic yard figure will match, because the hole is the same hole. The tonnage will only move if the two materials sit on different published weights, and a good many pairs here sit on the same one. Where the tons come back equal, take that as the honest answer and choose on stone size, on drainage and on the depth the layer needs.
Should I tick the five percent box every time?
It starts ticked. Leave it on for anything that gets compacted, raked out by eye or wheelbarrowed across a yard, such as gravel surfacing; base rock and crusher run get ten percent on their own calculators. Untick it for mulch and for decorative stone dropping into a bounded bed, where the edges are fixed and surplus has nowhere useful to go.
Do I order by the ton or by the cubic yard?
Take the unit shown on the product page for that material. Stone and gravel are quoted by the ton here, soil and mulch by the yard. Every calculator returns both figures, so there is no converting to do yourself.
How accurate is the number for a job on clay?
The conversion is not the uncertain part. The ground is. An uneven subgrade, a wet week, and compaction all move the real figure, which is why base work is measured to a finished compacted depth and comes with an allowance. Measure twice, decide the depth deliberately, and the estimate will land inside a workable range.
Priced it? It ships free.
All 24 materials in these calculators are in stock, delivered free across Texas.