SettingsSettings for this calculationUS
The volume of asphalt required, in cubic yards.
About 1.96 short tons per cubic yard for compacted hot-mix asphalt — 145 lb per cubic foot over 27 cubic feet — which is the same density the Asphalt Driveway Calculator applies, so the two pages agree on the same load.
Approximate weight
19.58 short tons
About 1.96 short tons per cubic yard for compacted hot-mix asphalt — 145 lb per cubic foot over 27 cubic feet — which is the same density the Asphalt Driveway Calculator applies, so the two pages agree on the same load. This is a planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
- Conversion factor applied
- 1.96 short tons per yd³
They open the calculator with your figures already in it
Asphalt Cubic Yards to Tons Calculator: 19.58 short tons — shown in imperial, US market. The link sets both, so the result they see is the one on your screen.
Show calculation logicHide calculation logic
How this was calculated
Formula source(s)
- Typical bulk density used here: approximately 1.9575 short tons per cubic yard
- Bulk density varies with moisture, compaction and grading — the supplier's weighbridge ticket governs
Inputs used
- Asphalt volume (yd³)
- 10
Intermediate steps
- Conversion factor applied
- 1.96 short tons per yd³
Confidence note: About 1.96 short tons per cubic yard for compacted hot-mix asphalt — 145 lb per cubic foot over 27 cubic feet — which is the same density the Asphalt Driveway Calculator applies, so the two pages agree on the same load. This is a planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
What this calculation does not cover
- A tonnage is a quantity, not an order. Hot mix is made to order and moved in whole lorry loads, so the converted figure has to be turned into loads the plant will actually send, and the last one is rarely a neat fit. The two ways of rounding are not equal: surplus at the end of a run has nowhere to go, while running out mid-run stops the paver and leaves a joint across the finished surface.
- Haulage is planned against the tonnage rather than the cubic yards, and for hot mix that means a delivery sequence and not simply a number of loads, because each load carries its own temperature clock and has to arrive with the paver ready to take it. That weight also travels over the works before it reaches them: a laden tipper reversing to the paver puts its full axle load on the new sub-base, the domestic drive or the suspended deck underneath, and whether that will take it is a separate check from the paving.
- Breaking the pavement out changes the volume, not the weight. The density used here is that of the rolled mat, so the tonnage still stands once the pavement is broken up, while the same material stacked as slabs and lumps with voids between them takes a good deal more room on the ground and in the lorry. Size the skips and removal loads on that loose volume, not on the volume of pavement you measured — the container is filled by volume and the tip charges by weight.
Estimated cost — your price
This site holds no price list for this material — local prices vary too much to publish honestly. Enter your supplier's price and the result is costed with it.
Computed in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded. Presented in US customary units and US trade terminology. Where a formula follows a published standard, that standard and its edition are cited beside it on this page; where none governs, the page says so. Local amendments override model codes — verify against the code in force where you build.
Sources checked 2026-08-26 · in the site-wide review of 2026-09-06 · v1.0.0
Regulatory standards & verification citations2
- Typical bulk density used here: approximately 1.9575 short tons per cubic yard
- Bulk density varies with moisture, compaction and grading — the supplier's weighbridge ticket governs
Cite this page
Your workspace
Most jobs need more than one number. Add the calculators you need next and they open right here, underneath this one — your figures stay on screen and nothing is lost to a page change.
Asphalt is almost universally sold by the ton, while a driveway or car park is set out as an area and a compacted thickness, so a volume figure has to be converted before anything can be ordered. The density here is for compacted material. That distinction is the whole game with asphalt: hot mix leaves the plant loose and is rolled to its final density, so the volume that arrives is greater than the volume in place. Ordering against the compacted volume without allowing for that shortfall leaves a job short of the specified thickness, which shows up as premature failure rather than as a visible gap.