FIELD CALCULATOR / LOOSE YD³ AND SHORT TONS
How many loads is it really?
Volume tells you when the box is full. Weight tells you when the axles are done. Whichever comes first sets your load count, and on heavy material it is almost always the weight.
Enter the haul above.
You will get the load count by volume, the load count by weight, and which of the two governs.
How it works
Two independent limits, then the larger one wins:
- Loads by volume = loose volume ÷ truck capacity, rounded up.
- Total weight = loose volume × loose density.
- Loads by weight = total weight ÷ legal payload, rounded up.
- Loads = whichever of those two numbers is larger.
Both round up, because there is no such thing as most of a trip. Leave the legal payload blank and you get the volume answer only — which is the right answer for light material and the wrong answer for rock.
You have 46 loose yd³ to move in 12-yard trucks. By volume that is 46 ÷ 12 = 3.83, so four loads.
Now weigh it. As common earth at 1.35 tons/yd³ the haul is 62.1 tons; across four loads that is 15.5 tons each. If your trucks are legal to 15 tons, four loads will not do it — you need five.
Make the same dig rock at 1.70 tons/yd³ and the haul is 78.2 tons. At a 15-ton payload that is 5.21, so six loads — half again as many as the volume answer — each running about 7.67 yd³ and 13 tons. The boxes go out two-thirds full and nobody is doing anything wrong.
Typical loose densities
These are the published starting figures this tool loads from its material presets. Actual material varies with moisture and how it was dug, and a wet clay can run heavier than the table says.
| Material | Swell factor | Loose density (tons/yd³) |
|---|---|---|
| Common earth | 1.15 | 1.35 |
| Clay | 1.25 | 1.45 |
| Sand | 1.10 | 1.30 |
| Gravel | 1.12 | 1.50 |
| Rock | 1.50 | 1.70 |
Getting the inputs right
Use loose volume, not bank volume. The number that matters here is what sits in the truck after it has been dug and bulked up, not what it measured in the ground. If you are starting from in-place dimensions, run the trench volume calculator first and bring its loose figure over.
Truck capacity means struck or heaped, consistently. A box rated 12 yd³ heaped does not carry 12 yd³ of struck material. Pick one convention and use it for the whole job.
Legal payload is not the truck's rated capacity. It is gross vehicle weight minus tare, and it changes with axle configuration, the road you are on, and seasonal load restrictions. Frost laws in particular can cut what you may legally carry for weeks at a time. Ask the hauler for the number they actually run.
What this does not account for
Cycle time, haul distance, spotting delays and the number of trucks you need to keep a machine busy are a separate problem — this is load count, not a production schedule. It also assumes one material throughout; a dig that changes from topsoil to clay to rock should be estimated in layers and added up.
Keep it with the job
A load count is worth more when it sits with the dimensions and assumptions it came from. The Driftless Field workspace records the estimate against a named job with the factors printed on the report, so when someone asks in three weeks why the number was what it was, the answer is on the page.
Useful on your job?
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