Asphalt calculator
Ver el procedimiento — con sus números
This weighs a volume: your area times your compacted thickness times the density you enter. It does not decide how deep to pave, whether the base will hold up, or how much the mix will lose to compaction — those belong to your paving contractor and your supplier. Confirm the tonnage against their quote before the truck rolls.
Enter the length and width of the area you are paving and the compacted thickness, and the tool gives you the volume in cubic yards and cubic metres and the weight in tons — the unit an asphalt plant quotes and bills in. The density field is yours to change to whatever your supplier states for their mix.
Ejemplo resuelto
Say a driveway is 40 ft long and 12 ft wide, paved 2 inches thick. The area is 480 square feet; two inches is 1/6 of a foot, so the volume is 480 × 0.167 = 80 cubic feet, which is 80 ÷ 27 ≈ 2.96 yd³. At about 2 tons per cubic yard that is roughly 5.9 tons, and with 10% for edge spread you would order close to 6.5 tons.
In metric: 12 m × 3.6 m at 5 cm is 43.2 m² × 0.05 = 2.16 m³. At the default 2.4 tonnes per cubic metre that is 5.2 tonnes, and about 5.7 tonnes with 10% for the edges.
En la obra
Two lifts, two takeoffs. A lane 200 ft × 22 ft is getting a 3-inch binder course and a 1.5-inch surface course. Do not add the depths and run it once — the two mixes are priced and batched separately. Binder: 4,400 ft² × 0.25 = 1,100 ft³ = 40.7 yd³ × 2.0 = 81.5 tons. Surface: 4,400 × 0.125 = 550 ft³ = 20.4 yd³ = 40.7 tons. Two tickets, two densities if the plant gives you two. In metric, a 60 m × 6.7 m lane with a 75 mm binder and a 40 mm surface is 30.15 m³ and 16.08 m³ — 72.4 and 38.6 tonnes at 2.4 t/m³.
The plant talks in tons per square yard. Some quotes come as "so many square yards at 2 inches". A square yard is 9 ft², so 480 ft² is 53.3 yd². You still need the tonnage to check the bill: 53.3 yd² × (2 ÷ 36) yd deep = 2.96 yd³ × 2.0 t = 5.9 tons — the same answer as the worked example, arrived at the plant's way. If their number and yours disagree by more than the waste, one of you has the wrong thickness. A metric quote in square metres works the same way: 480 ft² is 44.6 m², and at 50 mm that is 44.6 × 0.05 = 2.23 m³.
Patching is not paving. A 6 ft × 4 ft pothole cut out square, 3 in deep, is 6 ft³ — a fifth of a yard, under half a ton. A dozen of those across a lot is 5 tons of hot mix and a morning (in metric, a 1.8 m × 1.2 m patch at 75 mm is 0.16 m³, under 0.4 tonnes); type each patch or total the area and run it once at the common depth.
What went wrong?
Quick referencefor paving
- A cubic yard
- 27 ft³
- A square yard
- 9 ft²
- Thickness as feet
- 1.5 in = 0.125 · 2 in = 0.167 · 3 in = 0.25 · 4 in = 0.333
- Yards from an area, at 2 in
- ft² ÷ 162
- Yards from an area, at 3 in
- ft² ÷ 108
- Toneladas cortas
- yards × the plant's density (2.0 t/yd³ is only the default)
- Métrico
- 1 m³ = 1.31 yd³ · 1 tonne = 1.10 short tons · 25 mm ≈ 1 in
- Toneladas métricas
- m² × thickness in m × the plant's density (2.4 t/m³ is only the metric default)
Waste & overagewhat to add, and why
- Pavers order 5–10% over the takeoff because a gravel base is never dead flat — the low spots take extra mix, and hot mix cannot be sent back once it leaves the plant. Put that in the waste field.
- Small jobs hit the plant's minimum load before they hit the tonnage: ask what the smallest ticket is, because a 2-ton drive may be billed as 4.
- Order compacted thickness, not laid thickness: the mat loses depth under the roller, and the plant's density already assumes compacted mix — spread it thick enough to roll down to what you typed.
Mistakes to catchbefore you order
- Using a thickness in inches with the tool set to metric — a 5 typed as centimetres is two inches, and the tonnage comes out 20% short.
- Ordering off the plant's tons-per-yard for a different mix; a fine sand mix and a heavy base course can be 15% apart in density, so type the figure for the mix on the ticket.
- Forgetting the edge tapers and the apron at the road — those wedges are real tonnage that a plain length × width misses; add them as their own runs.
What an inspector looks forthe municipal or owner's paving inspector
On this part of the job
- Base preparation and compaction before any mix is laid — most paving failures are base failures.
- The mix type against the specification, read off the delivery ticket, and the temperature of the load as it arrives.
- Compacted thickness, checked by core or by depth probe against what was specified — and it is the compacted thickness that counts, not what came off the paver.
- Rolling pattern and timing, joints between passes, and the tack coat at every cold joint and vertical edge.
- Grades and cross-fall, so water leaves the surface where the drawing says it should.
Have this ready
- Every load ticket, kept in order with the times on them.
- The specification for mix type, thickness and compaction.
- Grade stakes or a laser reference still in place for the depth check.
Every figure an inspector measures against comes from the code your jurisdiction has adopted, the stamped drawing, or the manufacturer's printed instructions — so none of them are printed here. Look the number up in your own book, type it into the tool, and the arithmetic is yours.
La fórmula
weight = length × width × thickness × density
The area times the thickness is a volume; multiplying by density turns that volume into weight. Keep the thickness in the same length family as the rest — divide inches by 12 to get feet before multiplying — then convert cubic feet to cubic yards by dividing by 27. Because density is a weight per volume, it does the last step.
What this tool assumes
Only what you tell it. The thickness, the density and the waste percentage are all editable, because those are the figures that vary from job to job and supplier to supplier. Nothing about the base, the sub-grade or the compaction is baked in — the tool measures the mat, not the road under it.
Preguntas
- How much asphalt do I need for a driveway?
- Multiply the paved area by the compacted thickness to get the volume, then multiply by the density of hot-mix to get the weight, which is how asphalt is sold. A 40 ft by 12 ft drive at 2 inches compacted is 80 cubic feet, roughly 3 cubic yards, or around 6 tons at typical hot-mix density. In metric, 12 m by 3.6 m at 50 mm is 2.16 m³, about 5.2 tonnes at 2.4 t/m³. Enter your own numbers and the tool does the same steps.
- What density should I use for asphalt?
- Compacted hot-mix asphalt runs around 145 pounds per cubic foot, which works out to about 2 tons per cubic yard, and that is the editable default here (in metric, 145 lb/ft³ is about 2,320 kg per cubic metre; the metric default is 2.4 t/m³). Different mixes and aggregates shift it, so if your supplier quotes a density, type theirs in — it is the single number that moves the tonnage most.
- How thick should an asphalt layer be?
- That is a paving decision, not an arithmetic one, so this tool does not pick it for you — you enter the compacted thickness you have been told to lay. Bear in mind asphalt compacts as it is rolled, so the loose depth is greater than the finished depth; order against the finished thickness and let the crew account for compaction.
- Should I order extra asphalt?
- Yes, a little. Edges spread, thickness is never perfectly even, and a truck that leaves half a ton short is an expensive callback. The waste field defaults to 10 percent; keep it there for a clean rectangle and raise it for an irregular shape with a lot of edge work.
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