Construction Calculators
2 toolsMaterial quantity tools for the jobs that start with a tape measure and end with an order. Both take an area and a depth and return the volume, then convert it into whatever unit your supplier actually trades in — cubic yards and tons for aggregate, bags for mulch, cubic metres for either. Each shows its working, so the number you take to the merchant is one you can defend.
One Formula, Two Materials That Behave Differently
Both calculators run the same three steps. Area is length times width. Volume is area times depth, once the depth has been converted out of inches. Cubic yards are cubic feet divided by 27. Nothing about that changes between stone and bark.
What changes is the judgement wrapped around it. With aggregate, the question is whether the layer is thick enough for the stones to lock together and carry weight, so the risk runs in one direction — too thin and the surface scatters. Mulch has a limit at both ends: too thin and weeds come through, too thick and the bed underneath is starved of water and air. Two identical sums, two different things to worry about.
Ordering by Volume, Buying by Weight or by Bag
Volume is what a project needs, but it is rarely what appears on an invoice. Aggregate is weighed on a weighbridge and quoted in tons, which means density sits between your calculation and your order. Mulch is light enough that weight barely features and is sold by the bag or the cubic yard instead.
That is why the gravel calculator treats density as an editable input and states the figure it used, while the mulch calculator works in bags and tells you how many one cubic yard contains. Each reports in the unit its own trade quotes in, rather than forcing both into the same column.
Measure the Site Once, Order Twice
Most garden projects need both. A new path is stone down the middle and bark either side of it; a parking area often ends at a planted border. The efficient way to handle that is to walk the site once with a tape, write down every rectangle with a note of what is going in it, and sort the list afterwards.
Keep the two lists separate rather than totalling a single area figure, because the depths differ and the materials are ordered from different suppliers in different units. Two tidy lists beat one combined number you then have to unpick at the merchant's counter.
Where measurements arrive in a mix of metres and feet, the unit conversion calculator will square them up before you start, and the mixed number calculator turns a depth read off a tape in eighths into the decimal these tools expect.