Buying · Guide
How Much Does a Yard Weigh? Hauling Mulch, Soil and Gravel Safely
A pickup bed holds two cubic yards of anything. It can carry two cubic yards of almost nothing. Here is how to tell what your vehicle can really haul.
Hauling your own material saves the delivery fee, and most landscape yards will happily load a pickup or a trailer with a front loader. The loader operator will fill the bed to whatever level you ask for. What they will not do is check whether your truck can carry it. That part is up to you, and it depends on weight, not on how full the bed looks.
Weights per cubic yard
These are typical ranges. The low end is dry material and the high end is wet.
| Material | Pounds per cubic yard | Tons per cubic yard | kg per m³ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wood mulch, bark | 400 to 800 | 0.2 to 0.4 | 240 to 475 |
| Compost | 1,000 to 1,600 | 0.5 to 0.8 | 590 to 950 |
| Garden soil blend | 1,400 to 2,200 | 0.7 to 1.1 | 830 to 1,300 |
| Topsoil | 2,000 to 2,700 | 1.0 to 1.35 | 1,190 to 1,600 |
| Lava rock | 1,200 to 1,500 | 0.6 to 0.75 | 710 to 890 |
| Sand | 2,600 to 3,000 | 1.3 to 1.5 | 1,540 to 1,780 |
| Pea gravel, river rock | 2,500 to 2,800 | 1.25 to 1.4 | 1,480 to 1,660 |
| Crushed stone | 2,600 to 2,900 | 1.3 to 1.45 | 1,540 to 1,720 |
| Crusher run, road base | 2,700 to 3,000 | 1.35 to 1.5 | 1,600 to 1,780 |
| Wet concrete | about 4,050 | about 2.0 | about 2,400 |
Look at the spread between the top and the bottom of the table. A cubic yard of crushed stone weighs about five times as much as a cubic yard of mulch. The same bed, filled to the same line, is a light load in one case and a dangerous overload in the other.
Why wet material is so much heavier
Water weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, and loose materials are full of spaces for it to fill. A pile of topsoil that has sat through a week of rain can weigh a third more than the same pile in a dry spell. Mulch can double.
If it has rained recently, use the high end of every range. If you can choose your day, collect soil and mulch after a dry spell. You get more material for the same weight, and it is far easier to shovel.
Finding your vehicle’s payload
Payload is the total weight a vehicle can carry, including the people in it. It is not the same as towing capacity, and it is nearly always lower than owners assume.
To find it, open the driver’s door and look for the tire and loading sticker on the door frame. It carries a line that reads something like “The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed 1,450 lb.” That number is your payload.
Then subtract everything that is not cargo:
A truck with a 1,450 pound payload, a 190 pound driver, a passenger and a toolbox has a little over 1,000 pounds left for material.
Typical payloads, as a rough guide only:
| Vehicle | Typical payload |
|---|---|
| Small car or compact SUV | 800 to 1,000 lb |
| Midsize SUV or minivan | 1,000 to 1,500 lb |
| Midsize pickup | 1,000 to 1,600 lb |
| Half-ton pickup | 1,300 to 2,200 lb |
| Three-quarter-ton pickup | 2,500 to 4,000 lb |
| Small utility trailer, single axle | 1,500 to 2,000 lb |
The names are misleading. A “half-ton” truck does not carry exactly half a ton. The name is a size class from decades ago. Your sticker is the only number that counts.
How much of each material fits
Here is what a cargo allowance of 1,200 pounds will carry, which is a realistic figure for a half-ton pickup with a driver aboard.
| Material | Weight used | 1,200 lb carries about |
|---|---|---|
| Mulch | 800 lb per cu yd | 1.5 cu yd |
| Compost | 1,600 lb per cu yd | 0.75 cu yd |
| Topsoil | 2,700 lb per cu yd | 0.45 cu yd |
| Crushed stone or gravel | 2,900 lb per cu yd | 0.4 cu yd |
| Sand | 3,000 lb per cu yd | 0.4 cu yd |
The table uses the heavy end of each range, which is the safe way to plan. With mulch, the bed fills before the springs complain. With soil and stone, a load that looks like a thin layer on the floor of the bed is all the truck can take.
To work it out for your own vehicle:
Bags in a car
The same sum applies to bags, and it catches people out just as often. A small car with an 850 pound payload and two adults aboard has about 500 pounds to spare.
| Bag | Typical weight | 500 lb carries |
|---|---|---|
| Mulch, 2 cu ft | 20 to 40 lb | 12 to 25 bags, if they fit |
| Compost, 1 cu ft | 40 to 55 lb | 9 to 12 bags |
| Topsoil, 0.75 cu ft | 40 lb | 12 bags |
| Gravel or sand, 0.5 cu ft | 50 lb | 10 bags |
| Concrete mix | 80 lb | 6 bags |
Ten bags of gravel does not look like much on a cart. It is as much as a small car should carry with two people in it.
Loading and driving
Place the weight forward of the rear axle. In a pickup, have the loader drop the material toward the front of the bed, against the cab. Weight behind the axle lifts the front wheels and makes the steering light.
Keep the load low and level. A heap piled above the bed sides shifts in corners and blows off at speed.
Cover it. A tarp tied over loose material is required by law in many places, and a stone that bounces out onto the car behind is your liability everywhere. Mulch and dry soil blow out in a surprising volume.
Check the tires. The same door sticker gives the tire pressures for a full load. Under-inflated tires on a loaded truck run hot.
Drive as if the brakes were half as good. They are. A loaded vehicle takes far longer to stop and leans more in bends. Leave a long gap and take corners slowly.
With a trailer, put the weight slightly ahead of the trailer axle. About 10 to 15% of the trailer’s total weight should press down on the hitch. Too little and the trailer sways. Too much and it lifts the front of the tow vehicle.
When to have it delivered instead
Add up the trips. If you need two cubic yards of topsoil and can carry 0.45 of a yard at a time, that is five round trips. At that point a delivery fee starts to look like a bargain, and that is before counting your fuel and an afternoon.
As a rule of thumb, haul it yourself when one or two trips will do the job. Have it delivered when it would take three or more.
Delivery trucks have their own weight to think about. A loaded dump truck can weigh 25,000 pounds or more. Before it arrives, decide where it can safely go:
- Keep it off septic tanks and drain fields, which can collapse.
- Keep it off thin or cracked driveways, and off pavers.
- Look up. Overhead wires and low branches stop the bed from tipping.
- Mark the spot with a tarp, so the driver knows exactly where to dump.
Moving it once it has landed
The hauling does not end at the driveway. A contractor’s wheelbarrow holds about 6 cubic feet. Filled level with mulch, that is somewhere between 90 and 180 pounds, heavy but manageable. Filled level with gravel, it is around 600 pounds, which nobody can push.
For soil and stone, fill the wheelbarrow a third to a half full and make more trips. It is quicker than tipping over a full barrow and shoveling it up again, and far kinder to your back.
A cubic yard of topsoil is 9 half-loads, or about 14 loads at a third full. Two people, one shoveling and one wheeling, make short work of that if the run is short, so plan the pile as close to the bed as the truck can get.
Written and checked by Bertha
Last updated · How we work out our numbers