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Fill Dirt tonnage as delivered.
About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture.
Approximate volume
8 yd³
About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture. Compare against your compacted or settled requirement rather than the loose delivered figure.
- Conversion factor applied
- 0.8 yd³ per short ton
They open the calculator with your figures already in it
Fill Dirt Tons to Cubic Yards Calculator: 8 yd³ — 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)
- Inverse of approximately 1.25 short tons per cubic yard
- 1 short ton = 2,000 lb; a metric tonne is about 10% heavier
Inputs used
- Fill Dirt weight (short tons)
- 10
Intermediate steps
- Conversion factor applied
- 0.8 yd³ per short ton
Confidence note: About 1.25 short tons per cubic yard for typical fill; heavily variable with clay content and moisture. Compare against your compacted or settled requirement rather than the loose delivered figure.
What this calculation does not cover
- A ton of wet fill is fewer cubic yards than a ton of dry fill, because part of what was weighed is water. Soil about a fifth heavier per cubic yard wet than dry delivers roughly a sixth fewer cubic yards to the ton, and that shortfall comes out of the coverage rather than off the price. Two identical tonnages from the same pit can make up measurably different depths.
- The converted yardage is loose volume as tipped, and the finished volume is smaller by an amount nobody can quote in advance. Placed in layers and compacted, a granular subsoil tightens modestly and fairly predictably while a clay-rich fill at a workable moisture content gives up more — which is why fill carries a range where a graded sub-base would carry a figure. Fill that is only pushed level rather than compacted in layers loses the volume anyway, later and less evenly, as settlement.
- Oversize rubble is the piece to catch as the load tips. Broken-out hardcore in a fill layer stops it closing up under compaction, and grading over it hides the problem rather than fixing it. Whatever comes back out is tonnage on the ticket that never becomes volume in the profile, so read this yardage as the most the load can place rather than what it will.
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
- Inverse of approximately 1.25 short tons per cubic yard
- 1 short ton = 2,000 lb; a metric tonne is about 10% heavier
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Converting a fill tonnage to volume answers whether a load will bring an area up to level, but the answer needs a compaction allowance applied to it. Fill placed in thin layers and compacted properly occupies considerably less space than the loose delivered material, which is exactly what you want structurally and exactly what catches people out on quantity. The other question worth asking a supplier is what the fill actually is: clay-heavy material behaves very differently from granular fill, holding water and shrinking and swelling with the seasons.