Topsoil Calculator

What this calculation does not cover

• The answer is a loose volume and nothing turns it into weight, because no bulk density is asked for anywhere in the form — topsoil is very often quoted, delivered and tipped by the ton or tonne, and how much a cubic yard of it weighs moves with how wet it is, how much organic matter it carries and how finely it has been screened.
• No allowance for consolidation is folded in: the number is a bare length x width x depth, so soil tipped to the depth you typed will read shallower once it has been rained on and walked over, and making the level good again is a second, smaller order.
• The footprint is one rectangle carried at a single depth, so a curved border reads as its bounding box, ground that falls away across the bed is not picked up, and the room already filled by shrub root balls, stepping stones or the thickness of edging boards is never deducted.
• Fill depth is capped at 24 in (0.61 m) and each side at 50 m (about 164 ft), which puts berms, deep planting pits and field-scale regrading outside the form, and inside that band the depth entered is simply taken as correct — nothing checks that it gives enough rooting depth for what you intend to grow.
• Only soil going in is counted, with nothing coming out, so where turf has to be stripped or tired ground dug down before filling, neither the spoil to be carted away nor the level already occupied by what is there is netted off the delivery.