Short tons to cubic yards
Divide the weight by what one cubic yard of the material weighs. Crushed stone, loose, is about 1.25 short tons a yard, so 10 short tons is 10 ÷ 1.25 = 8 cubic yards — 216 cubic feet, or 6.12 cubic meters. Spread 3 inches deep, a cubic yard covers 324 ÷ 3 = 108 square feet, so the 10 short tons cover 8 × 108 = 864 square feet. Change the depth and the page says how far the same stone goes; set it to 0 to leave it a pile.
Short tons or tonnes on the ticket
In the United States a quarry's ticket means short tons of 2,000 lb. A
tonne, or metric ton, is 1,000 kg, about 2,205 lb. The weight box takes
either, written out — 10 short tons, 10 tonnes,
20000 lb — and a bare number as short tons on this page. It
refuses "tons" on its own and asks which, because the two are 10% apart:
10 tonnes of crushed stone is 8.82 cubic yards, not 8.
One popular calculator's help text says "1 ton = 0.714 yd³". That matches neither a short ton nor a tonne at its own density of 105 lb a cubic foot: a short ton is 0.705 cubic yards there and a tonne 0.778. Every figure on this page says whether it is in short tons or tonnes.
A short ton of each material
| Material, loose | Cubic yards a short ton | Covers at 3 in |
|---|---|---|
| Crushed stone | 0.8 | 86.4 ft² |
| #57 stone | 0.72 | 78.26 ft² |
| Pea gravel | 0.71 | 77.14 ft² |
| Sand | 0.71 | 77.14 ft² |
| Topsoil | 0.85 | 91.53 ft² |
| Fill dirt | 0.85 | 91.53 ft² |
| Wood mulch | 4.23 | 456.66 ft² |
The weights are the loose figures the gravel, mulch and fill dirt pages use, from the Missouri DOT, the Federal Highway Administration, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the NRCS and the EPA, with suppliers' figures for pea gravel. Each is a box under Assumptions: your supplier's number for what a yard of their material weighs replaces ours, and the yards follow it.
Loose yards, not compacted ones
A ticket weighs stone as it leaves the pit, loose. Packed down, the same weight takes less room, so a compacted base 3 inches deep covers less than the table says. The gravel page works from the finished, compacted depth without counting the compaction twice. We are not connected with any calculator, supplier or store mentioned here.