How many tons is a cubic yard of gravel? Ask your supplier first: stone varies — a rounded pea gravel and a crushed base full of fines do not weigh the same — and the tons-per-yard figure they sell by is the one your order will be weighed against. Put it in the weight field and every total follows it. Without one, about 1.6 tons a loose cubic yard: this page uses 1.62, worked out from a road handbook below, so 10 loose yards is about 16 tons.
Gravel is sold loose by the ton or the cubic yard, or in bags, and the area is measured in square feet, so there are two sums between them: the volume, and what that volume weighs. The volume is the same arithmetic as mulch: one cubic yard covers 324 square feet an inch deep.
The weight is where most calculators start guessing. This one takes a published figure: Penn State’s Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies orders its road aggregate at 0.04 tons per square foot for an 8-inch loose lift, which is 0.06 tons a loose cubic foot, or 1.62 tons a loose cubic yard.
The depths are the sources’ own:
- An inch of small stone over a bed “will provide good weed control”, says Clemson’s fact sheet. It is permanent, so it is for permanent plantings, and it is not for acid-loving plants.
- 4 to 6 inches of crushed “3/4 minus” base under pavers, compacted in layers, with an inch of sand bedding on top, from Oregon State’s paver guide. Soft clay underneath, or pavers that will be driven on, need more.
- 8 inches loose, finishing at 6 for a gravel road or drive. Penn State’s handbook and PennDOT’s technical sheet both place the aggregate between 6 and 8 inches uncompacted, in one lift, and the handbook’s 8-inch lift compacts to 6.
That last ratio is the one this page has for compacting, and it uses it for every compacted depth: tick the box and it orders a third more than the finished volume, and says what a loose yard covers once it is packed down. A gravel drive also wears — up to an inch of surface a year, PennDOT says — so it is not bought once.
Measured an odd-shaped area on the calculator? Follow its link here and the area comes with it.