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The volume of fill dirt in cubic yards.
About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture.
Approximate weight
12.5 short tons
About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture. A planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the actual density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
- Conversion factor applied
- 1.25 short tons per yd³
They open the calculator with your figures already in it
Fill Dirt Cubic Yards to Tons Calculator: 12.5 short tons — shown in imperial, US market. The link sets both, so the result they see is the one on your screen.
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How this was calculated
Formula source(s)
- Typical bulk density used here: approximately 1.25 short tons per cubic yard
- Density varies with moisture, compaction and composition — the supplier's ticket weight governs
Inputs used
- Fill Dirt volume (yd³)
- 10
Intermediate steps
- Conversion factor applied
- 1.25 short tons per yd³
Confidence note: About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture. A planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the actual density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
What this calculation does not cover
- The 1.25 short tons per cubic yard is a loose, as-tipped figure, so the volume you put into it has to be loose volume too. Take it from the heap after digging, or add a bulking allowance to the dimensions of the hole — not both. A measured heap already has the swell in it, and adding it a second time counts the same soil twice.
- Fill is dense enough that on a skip, a plant trailer or a light truck the weight limit binds well before the body is full — the container still looks like it has room in it when the hire terms say it is finished. A purpose-built tipper body runs closer to balanced, so check the converted tonnage against the rated payload and axle loading of the vehicle actually coming rather than against the capacity of its body.
- Haulage and disposal are billed off the weighbridge ticket taken on the day, not off this estimate. The density here is a typical middle figure for fill, so the ticket can land either side of it and neither the haulier nor the tip is bound by the number you started with. Use the conversion to size the job and to get a rate per ton agreed in advance, then treat the total as provisional until the tickets are in.
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 1.25 short tons per cubic yard
- Density varies with moisture, compaction and composition — the supplier's ticket weight governs
Cite this page
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Fill is ordered to make ground up to level, and the conversion matters because it is usually bought by the ton and placed to a compacted specification. The gap between those two is larger for fill than for graded aggregate: loose fill placed and compacted in layers loses a substantial fraction of its delivered volume, and fill placed without compaction settles later on its own schedule, taking whatever is built on top with it. The density here is necessarily rough, because fill is by definition whatever came out of somewhere else.