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Convert tons to cubic yards (and yards to tons) for fill dirt, topsoil, clay and sand, wet or dry, using published bulk densities for each material.
With these inputs:
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| 10 tons of dirt / fill dirt, loose moist is | 9.5 yd³ |
| Cubic yards per ton | 0.95 yd³ |
| Cubic feet | 256.4 cu ft |
| Weight per cubic yard | 2,106 lb |
| Material | Dirt / fill dirt, loose moist |
| Bulk density | 78 lb/ft³ |
| Spreads at 2 in deep | 1,538 sq ft |
Bulk densities from The Engineering ToolBox (Dirt and Mud – Densities). Moisture changes the weight a lot: wet sand is about 23% heavier than dry. The supplier's scale ticket is what you pay for.
Quarries and landscape yards sell by the ton or by the cubic yard, and the conversion depends on the material and how wet it is. Pick the material, enter tons (or cubic yards), and the calculator converts using The Engineering ToolBox's bulk densities: about 76–80 lb per cubic foot for loose dirt and loam, 100–110 for clay and 97–119 for sand. For gravel and crushed stone, use the cubic yards to tons calculator, which has a density for each stone type.
About 0.97 cubic yards of loose dry dirt per ton, and 0.95 yd³ of loose moist dirt, using The Engineering ToolBox's 76 and 78 lb per cubic foot. Clay is denser: about 0.74 yd³ per ton dry and 0.67 wet.
About 0.93 cubic yards of topsoil (loam, 80 lb/ft³) per ton, so 10 tons is roughly 9.3 yards. Wet or clay-heavy soil weighs more, so a ton fills less.
About 0.76 cubic yards of dry sand per ton (97 lb/ft³) and about 0.62 yd³ of wet sand (119 lb/ft³). Ask whether the sand was weighed wet; stockpiled sand usually holds water.
At 78 lb per cubic foot, moist fill dirt weighs about 1.05 tons a yard, so a 15-ton load is about 14.2 yd³. Many tandem trucks reach their legal weight before the bed is full, which is why haulers quote 10–14 yards of dirt.
Multiply tons by 2,000 to get pounds, then divide by the material's weight per cubic yard (pounds per cubic foot × 27). For 10 tons of moist dirt: 20,000 ÷ (78 × 27) = 9.5 yd³.
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