Road base calculator
Work out how much road base a driveway needs in tonnes, cubic metres and scoops, loose and compacted.
Road base calculator
Use your supplier's density
You need
- Volume
- Weight
- Area
| Order by | Exact | Order, rounded up for anything sold in whole bags |
|---|
Enter your measurements to see what to order.
One cubic metre of road base weighs about 1.95 tonnes and covers about 20 square metres at 50mm.
How to work out how much road base you need
- Measure the area in metres and multiply length by width.
- Pick a depth in mm and multiply it by the area to get a volume.
- Multiply the volume by the bulk density, 1950 kg per cubic metre for road base, to get a weight.
- Divide the weight by your supplier's tonne or bulk bag to get what to order, and round up. Suppliers do not sell part bags.
- Add 20 percent. Australian suppliers publish loose and compacted densities separately, and road base loses about a fifth of its volume when compacted.
How many tons in a cubic yard of road base?
About 1.64 US tons, at 1950 kg per cubic metre. Because published densities run from 1500 to 2400, the honest answer is a range: between 1.26 and 2.02 tons per cubic yard depending on grading and how wet the load is.
How many cubic yards in a ton of road base?
About 0.61 cubic yards. One tonne is about 0.51 cubic metres.
How much does road base weigh?
Between 1500 and 2400 kg per cubic metre, a spread of 60 percent. Australian suppliers publish loose and compacted separately. Loose runs 1.5 to 1.9 tonnes per cubic metre, compacted 2.2 to 2.4. The calculator above uses 1950, and you can replace it with your own supplier's figure.
5 published figures from 5 suppliers, read 2026-09-20.
| Supplier | Published figure | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Native Landscapes (ANL)AU | 1.75 loose tonnes and 2.4 compacted tonnes per cubic metre | loose and compacted (both columns published) |
| Waratah Supplies (Sydney)AU | 1 Cubic Metre = 1.5 Tonne | unstated (sold loose tip or bulk bag) |
| Bedrock Landscape Centre, Townsville QLDAU | 1.5 Tonne Per Cubic Metre | unstated |
| Hunter Blue Metal (NSW quarry supplier, DGB20 to TfNSW 3051)AU | approximately 2.2 to 2.4 tonnes per cubic metre compacted; roughly 1.9 to 2.1 tonnes per cubic metre loose | compacted and loose (both published) |
| Landscape Design Institute (LDI), Australia's peak body for professional landscape designers (formerly AILDM)AU | 1.70 T/m3 loose density (stockpile), 2.40 T/m3 compacted density | loose (stockpile) and compacted |
What you can order road base in
| Pack | Where | Size |
|---|---|---|
| cubic metre | UK, AU | 1 m3 |
| tonne | UK, AU | 1,000 kg |
| scoop (0.5 cubic metre) | AU | 0.5 m3 |
| scoop (0.4 cubic metre) | AU | 0.4 m3 |
Road base and road base
In the US trade the same material is sold as road base, ordered in cubic yards and tons, so the road base calculator works in those units and at those depths.