Cubic Yard Calculator
With length 20 ft, width 12 ft, depth 4 inch, waste allowance 10 %, cubic yard comes to 3.26 cu yd — cubic yards. It is reached in 7 steps, the last of which is 88 / 27, and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by NIST Special Publication 811, App. B.9, not an approximation fitted to it.
Cubic yards for any footprint and depth, with a waste allowance and the weight of the debris if you are hauling it away.
Formula and sources checked · How we check
Footprint Rectangle, Length 20 ft, Width 12 ft, Depth 4 inch
3.26 cu yd
Cubic yards for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.
It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.
- Footprint area
240 sq ft- Volume
240 * 4 / 1280 cu ft- Volume with waste
80 * (1 + 10 / 100)88 cu ft- Cubic yards
88 / 273.259 cu yd- Cubic meters
3.2592593 * 0.76455492.492 m3- Debris density
860 * 0 + 773 * 0 + 999 * 0 + 929 * 0 + 169 * 0 + 467 * 0 + 417 * 00 lb/cu yd- Debris weight if hauled out
3.2592593 * 0 / 20000 tons
Several at once
A job is rarely one of anything. Work out the first, add it, change the figures and add the next — the list keeps what each line was, and totals them.
Worked example
A 20 by 12 ft pad at 4 in deep is 80 cubic feet, which is 2.96 cubic yards before waste and 3.26 after a 10% allowance. Ready-mix is ordered in quarter-yard steps, so that is a 3.25 or 3.5 yard order.
How to work it out yourself
- 1.Measure the footprint in feet and the depth in inches. Depth is the one people get wrong: four inches is a third of a foot, not four.
- 2.Multiply the area by the depth in feet to get cubic feet, then divide by 27. A cubic yard is three feet on every side, so 3 x 3 x 3 = 27 cubic feet fill one.
- 3.Add a waste allowance. Subgrade is never as flat as the plan and some of the load stays in the truck.
- 4.If you are removing material rather than placing it, pick the debris material to get the weight. Dumpsters are rented by volume and billed by weight.
How far one cubic yard goes
A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. Spread one inch deep it covers 324 square feet, and every other depth is that figure divided by the depth in inches — which is the whole table in one sentence.
| Depth | Square feet | Square yards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 in | 324 | 36.0 |
| 2 in | 162 | 18.0 |
| 3 in | 108 | 12.0 |
| 4 in | 81 | 9.0 |
| 6 in | 54 | 6.0 |
| 8 in | 41 | 4.5 |
| 10 in | 32 | 3.6 |
| 12 in | 27 | 3.0 |
Cubic yards for a given area
| Area | 1 in | 2 in | 3 in | 4 in | 6 in | 8 in | 10 in | 12 in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 sq ft | 0.31 | 0.62 | 0.93 | 1.23 | 1.85 | 2.47 | 3.09 | 3.70 |
| 200 sq ft | 0.62 | 1.23 | 1.85 | 2.47 | 3.70 | 4.94 | 6.17 | 7.41 |
| 500 sq ft | 1.54 | 3.09 | 4.63 | 6.17 | 9.26 | 12.35 | 15.43 | 18.52 |
| 1,000 sq ft | 3.09 | 6.17 | 9.26 | 12.35 | 18.52 | 24.69 | 30.86 | 37.04 |
Suppliers deliver in whole or half yards, so round up — a truck will not bring 2.37.
Bags to the cubic yard
| Bag | Holds | Bags per yard |
|---|---|---|
| Mulch, 2 cu ft bag | 2 cu ft | 14 |
| Mulch, 3 cu ft bag | 3 cu ft | 9 |
| Topsoil or compost, 1 cu ft bag | 1 cu ft | 27 |
| Concrete mix, 80 lb bag | 0.6 cu ft | 45 |
| Concrete mix, 60 lb bag | 0.45 cu ft | 60 |
| Concrete mix, 40 lb bag | 0.3 cu ft | 90 |
Concrete is sold by weight and the yield is printed on the bag, which is why it takes 45 of the 80 lb bags to make a yard rather than the dozen people expect. Past about ten bags, ready-mix is cheaper and far less work.
Depth by use
| Use | Depth | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mulch, established beds | 2–3 in | Deeper than 3 in holds water against stems and starves roots of air. |
| Mulch, new beds over bare soil | 3–4 in | The extra inch is what suppresses weeds for a season. |
| Topsoil over an existing lawn | 0.25–0.5 in | Any more and the grass underneath is smothered rather than fed. |
| Topsoil for a new lawn | 4–6 in | Roots need the depth once, at the start; it cannot be added later. |
| Gravel walkway | 2–4 in | Over a compacted base, not over soil. |
| Gravel driveway, surface course | 3–4 in | Over 6 to 8 in of compacted base. |
| Gravel driveway, full build | 8–12 in | Base and surface together, laid and compacted in layers. |
| Concrete patio or walkway | 4 in | Four inches is the ordinary residential slab. Follow the specification for anything carrying a vehicle. |
How much extra to order
| Reason | Add | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Compaction, crushed stone | 20% | Six inches loose settles to about five. Order for the finished depth. |
| Settling, mulch and soil | 10–15% | Organic material shrinks as it breaks down over the first season. |
| Spillage and uneven ground | 5–10% | A hole is never the rectangle it was measured as. |
| Concrete, sub-base variation | 5–10% | A slab poured half an inch deep over 200 sq ft is a third of a yard nobody ordered. |
The formula
- Footprint area
- Volume
240 * 4 / 12 - Volume with waste
80 * (1 + 10 / 100) - Cubic yards
88 / 27 - Cubic meters
3.2592593 * 0.7645549 - Debris density
860 * 0 + 773 * 0 + 999 * 0 + 929 * 0 + 169 * 0 + 467 * 0 + 417 * 0 - Debris weight if hauled out
3.2592593 * 0 / 2000
Source: NIST Special Publication 811, App. B.9 — cubic yard to cubic meter; the yard is exactly 0.9144 m, US EPA, Volume-to-Weight Conversion Factors, April 2016 — construction and demolition debris table
Questions people actually ask
- Why divide by 27?
- A cubic yard is a cube three feet on each side, and 3 x 3 x 3 is 27, so one cubic yard holds 27 cubic feet. Depth in inches has to become feet first, which is where the other division by 12 comes from.
- Is the debris weight the same as the delivery weight?
- No, and this is the distinction most pages skip. These densities come from the EPA table for loose construction and demolition debris — broken-up material on its way to a landfill, full of air. Material delivered to you is compacted and much heavier: a cubic yard of poured concrete is roughly two tons, while the same yard broken out and loaded is about 0.43 tons here. Use these figures to size a dumpster or a haul-away, not to order material in.
- How many cubic yards fit in a pickup truck?
- A full-size half-ton pickup bed holds about 2 cubic yards level with the sides, but weight runs out before volume does. Mulch is light enough to fill it; a cubic yard of topsoil is about 1.1 tons — some 2,200 lb — so a single yard can be the truck’s whole rated payload. The figure is on the sticker in the driver’s door jamb.
- What is a cubic yard in metric?
- Exactly 0.764554857984 cubic meters. The yard is defined as exactly 0.9144 meters, so the cubic conversion is that number cubed and terminates rather than rounding.
Related
- Concrete CalculatorCubic yards of concrete for a slab, round pad, footing, column, wall or stairs, with bag counts and cost.
- Gravel & Aggregate CalculatorCubic yards and tons of gravel, sand, limestone or topsoil for an area at a given depth.
- Square Footage CalculatorSquare footage of a room, wall, border, gable end, ring or triangle from feet-and-inches measurements, with a waste factor and the cost.
- Mulch CalculatorCubic yards and bags of mulch for a bed, with a waste allowance and a warning when the depth would smother the roots.
- Material Weight CalculatorWhat a volume of gravel, sand, topsoil or mulch weighs, and what a weight takes up, so tons quoted by a supplier can be checked against yards measured on site.
- CBM CalculatorCubic meters of a shipment, and the chargeable weight that follows from it — the larger of actual and volumetric, which is what you pay on.
Part of a job
- Pouring concrete — 6 pages, in the order the questions arrive
Read first
- What a Gravel Driveway Costs — Which stone actually compacts, how deep each layer goes, and why the cheapest load is the expensive one once it has to be dug out and replaced two years later.
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