How to Calculate Cubic Yards

Mulch, soil, gravel, and concrete are sold by the cubic yard. A cubic yard is a cube 3 feet on each side, which holds 27 cubic feet. The Cubic Yard Calculator does the conversion and also shows bag counts.

Steps

1. Measure the length and width in feet.
2. Measure the depth in inches and divide by 12 to get feet.
3. Multiply length × width × depth to get cubic feet.
4. Divide by 27 to get cubic yards.

Example

A 12 by 10 foot bed at 3 inches deep is 12 × 10 × 0.25 = 30 cubic feet. Divided by 27, that is 1.11 cubic yards. In bags, it is 15 bags of 2 cubic feet or 10 bags of 3 cubic feet.

How far a cubic yard goes

At 3 inches deep, one cubic yard covers 108 sq ft. At 2 inches it covers 162 sq ft. Measure depth in a few places and use the average, because ground is rarely level.