Road base calculator for Texas

A 100-foot lane, 10 feet wide, at 6 inches compacted, needs about 31 tons of road base. Lanes are where tonnage sneaks up on people, and they're where free delivery matters most, since hauling 30 tons normally rivals the cost of the stone itself. Road base is a graded blend of crushed stone and fines, about 3,000 lb per cubic yard, made to compact into a dense platform under roads, driveways and equipment yards. The same math covers recycled crushed concrete base where a spec allows it.

Lane math

1. Measure length down the centerline and use the average width. For pads, plain length times width.
2. Compacted depth: 4 inches for light residential ground, 6 for daily traffic and delivery trucks, 8-12 over soft subgrades or under equipment.
3. Cubic feet / 27 = yards, x 1.5 = tons, +10% left on for compaction.

Coverage and lane tonnage

Building a lane that survives its second winter

• Strip the organics first. Base over topsoil pumps mud up through the stone no matter how thick you pour it.
• Soft or wet subgrade gets woven geotextile before any stone. It's the cheapest strength you can add to a lane.
• Compact in lifts of 4 inches or less, each rolled before the next.
• Crown the surface 2-3% from the centerline so rain sheds to the edges instead of soaking the base.
• Top with #57 or driveway gravel where you want a clean, dust-free running surface.
• Spreading 20-plus tons by hand is a week of your life. A tractor box blade or skid steer does it in an afternoon; budget the machine.

Worked example: the 100-foot farm lane

One hundred by ten feet at 6 inches: 1,000 x 0.5 = 500 cubic feet = 18.5 cubic yards, about 28 tons, and 30-31 with the allowance. That arrives as two tandem loads, so plan two drop points along the run rather than one mountain at the gate. Farm lanes are the biggest average orders this calculator produces, and the two-drop trick is the difference between spreading downhill and hauling uphill.

Pads for equipment, containers and RVs

The lane math works for pads, with one change: depth follows the axle, not the calendar. A 12 x 40 RV pad at 6 inches compacted is about 12 tons. A 20 x 40 equipment yard at 8 inches is 27. Shipping containers concentrate weight at four corners, so give container pads a full 8 inches plus fabric even on decent ground, or the corners will write their signatures into the pad by spring.

Crushed concrete as road base

Recycled concrete base compacts and carries load about as well as virgin road base and often costs less. County specs sometimes require virgin aggregate, so check before switching, but for private lanes and pads it's a sound trade. The calculation doesn't change: same 1.5 tons per yard, same lifts, same crown.

Road base by the ton and by the lane

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