Dirt Calculator for Filling and Regrading Massachusetts Ground

Moss where grass used to be is what usually ends with a fill dirt order on a Massachusetts lawn. Dense lower till sits a spade's depth under most of the state, snowmelt perches on top of it rather than draining through, and the low corner of back lawn above it stays saturated from the March thaw into May.

Say the wet corner measures 26 by 14 ft and the hollow is about five inches deep on average. That is 364 sq ft.

• 364 x 5 / 12 = 151.67 cu ft
• 151.67 / 27 = 5.62 cu yd
• 5.62 x 1.20 = 6.74 tons

With the ten percent ticked for spillage it is 6.18 cu yd, about 7.41 tons. Order six and a half yards, place it in lifts, and keep the finished surface a touch proud of the lawn around it. This is a hypothetical job, but the shape of it is the common one.

Averaging a hollow that is deeper at one end than the other

Fill work almost never has a flat bottom, which is why the depth box is the input that goes wrong.

Measure the deep point and the shallow edge, then use the average of the two. For a longer dip, take three or four readings down its length and average those. A stringline pulled level across the hollow with a tape dropped from it at intervals is quicker than it sounds and far better than guessing.

The shapes are rectangle, circle and multiple areas up to five. Length, width and diameter go in feet, depth goes in inches and the tool accepts 0.25 to 24. For a trench, the length and width are the trench itself, not the lawn around it, and the depth is how deep you are refilling.

A three-foot hole will not go into a field that stops at 24 inches, and fill work runs into that constantly. Run the same footprint twice at half the depth and add the two answers, or enter it as two areas under multiple areas and let the tool total them.

Cubic yards order it, tons tell you what the rain has added

Three figures come back: cubic yards, tons and cubic feet. Fill dirt is sold by the yard, so the yardage is the number you order on.

The tonnage still matters, because it is what you are moving. This site publishes about 2,400 lb per cubic yard for dry fill dirt, roughly 1.20 tons per yard, and up to 3,000 lb per yard once it is wet, roughly 1.50. The same 5.62 cubic yards from the worked example is 6.74 tons dry and about 8.43 tons out of a soaked pile.

Rain changes the weight and not the volume, so a wet forecast changes the plan for the day rather than the quantity on the order.

Ordering for the settlement, not just for the hole

Loose fill loses roughly 10 to 15 percent of its depth as it consolidates. Measure only the hollow, order exactly that, and the first heavy rain leaves you an inch or two low again.

Two habits fix it. Place the material in six to eight inch layers and compact each one, or at least soak each layer and let it consolidate before the next. On a lawn repair, finish about half an inch high and let it settle flush.

A second, less obvious rule: keep wood, roots and other organic debris out of the fill. Buried organic material rots quietly and can leave a soft hollow years after the grass has grown over it. Fill under a slab or a footing, or any fill that goes down near the 48-inch frost line, is engineered work with its own compaction specification, thinner lifts and machinery.

A hypothetical second job, run in the same session using multiple areas: a 22 by 4 ft berm along a fence at an average ten inches is 88 sq ft, 73.33 cu ft, 2.72 cu yd, about 3.26 tons.

Fill dirt below, screened loam on top, garden soil in the beds

Three tools on this site cover three different layers, and mixing them up is expensive in both directions.

• This one is for Fill Dirt, the screened mineral subsoil that carries the bulk of a grade change, a trench backfill or a berm. Nothing grows well in it.
• The topsoil calculator sizes the screened loam that goes on top, four to six inches of it, once the fill is brought to that much below finished grade. Loam is what Massachusetts landscapers call topsoil, and it is the growing layer.
• The soil calculator covers Garden Soil for raised beds and planting areas, where the blend matters more than the structure.

Raising a lawn by ten inches with loam is a waste of the loam and slower to firm up. Raising it with fill and no loam gives you a firm, sterile patch. Run the fill through this page and the loam through its own.

Booking the drop while the lawn will still carry a truck

Set the quantity on the product page, choose a delivery date and check out. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the truck needs clear access to a spot where the load can go down. Loam, mulch, sand and stone for the rest of the job sit on the full set of material calculators.

Time it for dry weather if the material has to cross a lawn on dense till. Wet fill smears instead of compacting, and a loaded truck on soft spring ground leaves ruts that become their own regrading job.

Common questions

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