A 12 by 40 gravel driveway is 8.89 cubic yards compacted. You order it in tons, and the conversion factor is the whole game.

Hey, it's the editorial team at SimplyWise.

We published a guide today on converting gravel and base yardage into tons, and the measured numbers are worth knowing before the next load gets ordered.

The volume math is the easy half. Area times depth in feet, divided by 27. A 12 by 40 driveway at the 6 inches of subbase New York DOT specifies for paved residential driveways is 8.89 cubic yards compacted.

The conversion factor is a range, not a constant. A Wisconsin DOT study measured factors from 1.50 to 1.98 tons per cubic yard across nine real aggregates. Wisconsin pays completed dense base at a flat 1.85 when one defensible number is needed, which puts that driveway at 16.44 tons on paper and 16 to 18 tons as an honest order.

The pile is bigger than the hole. Loose dense base takes 34 to 52 percent more room than compacted, so an 8.89 yard job needs staging room for about 12 to 13.5 loose yards. Across all nine aggregates the measured expansion ran 27 to 60 percent.

Moisture is money. Wisconsin deducts water above 7 percent moisture from pay weight, and Texas buys flexible base on dry weight outright. Nobody docks a residential supplier for you, so a rainy delivery and a dry one weigh different on the same ticket.

Recycled concrete base runs lighter, 1.65 to 1.75, so the same hole takes fewer tons but needs more volume per ton.

The full guide is here: https://www.simplywise.com/blog/gravel-and-base-yardage-calculator/

What factor does your supplier or agency use for dense base, and does it match what the scale tickets say?