Excavation, foundations & earthworks

Cut and fill balance; excavation and backfill with lift counts; trench volumes; base and bedding courses by tonnage; topsoil and garden beds; the soil properties that drive all of it — unit weight, void ratio, relative density, swell and shrinkage; and the foundation side: spread footings and bearing pressure, piles with skin friction and adfreeze, retaining wall stability, settlement, seepage and dewatering.

Whether you are moving the ground or loading it. An earthworks volume depends on which state the material is in — bank, loose or compacted — and the swell and shrinkage factors between them are the whole answer; ignore them and the order is short by a fifth. A foundation calculation depends on the soil's strength or permeability instead, and gives you a dimension or a flow rather than a volume.

The concrete in the foundation and the reinforcement inside it, the temporary support holding an excavation open, and the conversion of a volume to a weight.