Soil Swell & Shrinkage Haul Volume Calculator

What this calculation does not cover

• The swell and shrinkage percentages are figures you supply, not properties this page derives. Moisture content, fines content, how the material is dug and the compactive effort actually applied all move the real factors, and the same soil at a different moisture will not behave like the number you typed. Take the factors from the site investigation or measured local experience, not from a general table.
• This is a volume conversion, not a haulage calculation. It does not size trucks, count loads, or apply payload limits — wet or dense spoil often reaches a lorry's weight limit before it fills the body, and heap, tailgate profile and further bulking during loading all sit between this loose figure and a load count.
• The compacted figure is not a compaction specification. It assumes the placed fill achieves exactly the shrinkage percentage entered, and says nothing about the density the fill must be tested to, layer thickness, the plant used, or material rejected and reworked. It does not replace field density testing.
• One bank volume with one pair of factors. A mixed excavation — topsoil over clay over rock, or a trench through made ground — has different swell and shrinkage per stratum, and running the whole quantity at a single figure misstates both the haul and the fill. Topsoil stripping and unsuitable or contaminated material that leaves site instead of returning to fill are outside the model entirely.
• The loose volume describes material immediately after excavation. A stockpile consolidates under its own weight and with rain, so a survey of a pile that has stood for weeks comes back below this figure. Nothing here addresses waste classification, tipping, or duty-of-care disposal requirements for spoil going off site.