Driveway Gravel Calculator

For a 60 by 12 foot driveway at 4 inches deep you need about 9 cubic yards, or roughly 13 tons, per layer. A full new build with two 4 inch layers is double that. Resurfacing an existing drive at 2 inches takes about 4.5 cubic yards.

Eight to twelve inches of stone in total for a new driveway on decent subgrade, built in layers: coarse #3 or #4 stone at the bottom, then a middle layer, then a 3 to 4 inch top course of crusher run or #57. Soft clay subgrade needs more depth plus a geotextile separation fabric.

Crusher run — angular crushed stone with the fines included — for the top course, because the fines lock the stone together into a firm surface. Larger clean stone for the base layers where drainage matters. Never rounded river rock or pea gravel: it never locks up and you will be raking ruts every month.

At 4 inches deep, roughly 0.024 tons per square foot — so 100 square feet takes about 2.4 tons. Suppliers usually sell driveway stone by the ton, so this is the figure to take to them.

Measure the length and width in feet at the widest points and multiply them. For an irregular bed, break it into rectangles, circles and triangles, calculate each one separately and add the results together. Rounding up slightly is safer than rounding down.

Bulk is almost always cheaper per cubic yard once you need more than about 1 cubic yard — roughly 14 bags. Bags win when you need a small amount, have nowhere to dump a pile, or want to spread the job over several weekends.

A half-ton pickup can usually carry about 1 cubic yard of light material like mulch, but only around half a cubic yard of wet soil or gravel because of the weight. Check the weight figure above against your vehicle's payload rating before you load up.