Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

By trade

Landscaping calculators

Landscaping quantities are depth multiplied by an area that is almost never a rectangle, and bought by weight from a supplier who quotes volume. Between those two conversions is where most of the error in a soft-landscaping order lives.

  • 27Calculators
  • 3Parts of the site

How landscaping is measured

Cubic metres at a settled depth for soil, mulch and bark, converted to tonnes by a density that depends on how wet the material is. Turf is by the roll or the square metre; seed and fertiliser by grams per square metre; irrigation by precipitation rate rather than by flow.

What gets left off a landscaping order

  • Settlement. Mulch and topsoil are delivered loose and end up compacted, so the ordered depth is not the finished depth.
  • The weight of wet material. A tonne of dry bark and a tonne of soaked bark are different volumes on the same lorry.
  • Irrigation uniformity: a zone that delivers unevenly waters to its driest point, which wastes most of the water it applies.
  • Edging, fabric and stakes — the linear and count items that hold a soft landscape in place.

Job takeoffs2

Where landscapers meet the rest of the job: each runs one of these calculators, with every other trade in the same job beside it.

Worked examples1

A real job estimated step by step, with this trade's steps counted.

Comparisons6

Two ways of doing the same work, weighed against each other.