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The volume of wood chip in cubic yards.
About 0.25 short tons per cubic yard for fresh wood chip; among the lightest bulk materials handled on site.
Approximate weight
2.5 short tons
About 0.25 short tons per cubic yard for fresh wood chip; among the lightest bulk materials handled on site. A planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the actual density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
- Conversion factor applied
- 0.25 short tons per yd³
They open the calculator with your figures already in it
Wood Chip Cubic Yards to Tons Calculator: 2.5 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 0.25 short tons per cubic yard
- Density varies with moisture, compaction and composition — the supplier's ticket weight governs
Inputs used
- Wood Chip volume (yd³)
- 10
Intermediate steps
- Conversion factor applied
- 0.25 short tons per yd³
Confidence note: About 0.25 short tons per cubic yard for fresh wood chip; among the lightest bulk materials handled on site. A planning figure, not a specification. Confirm the actual density with your supplier before ordering by weight.
What this calculation does not cover
- The volume has to be loose chip, measured after chipping. Solid timber weighs roughly two to three and a half times what the chip made from it weighs per cubic yard — softwood at the bottom of that range, dense green hardwood at the top — so a solid-timber volume put through this figure understates the load badly. A heap of unchipped brash is mostly air and errs the other way.
- Site-clearance and stump-grinding loads are not all wood. Soil and stone weigh around five times what chip does per cubic yard, so dug-in butts, grindings and mud carried off the ground push a load's weight up while its cubic yards barely move. Weigh a dirty load rather than converting it.
- Chip that leaves a site as waste rather than arriving as a product is charged on weight. Disposal and transfer-station gates price wood waste by the ton, and a hired container carries a weight allowance as well as a capacity, so it is this figure the charge and the container limit turn on rather than the cubic yards.
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 0.25 short tons per cubic yard
- Density varies with moisture, compaction and composition — the supplier's ticket weight governs
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Wood chip is the lightest bulk material most sites deal with, roughly a fifth the weight of aggregate per cubic yard, which is why it is sold by volume almost without exception. Converting to weight is a haulage question rather than an ordering one: a trailer will run out of space long before it runs out of payload, and the constraint on moving chip is always cubic capacity. Fresh green chip is heavier than seasoned, since much of the weight is water, and it also composts as it dries, losing volume in the process.