Sand Weight Per Yard, Dry and Wet

The number to plan with

Plan on 2,700 lb for each cubic yard. All four sands in our catalog share that figure, whether the grain is fine and washed or coarse and sharp.^[1]

A box measuring 3 feet in length, width and height holds one yard, so you can picture it standing beside you, about waist high. That box of sand weighs close to what a small car weighs.

Working the other way, one ton of sand fills 0.74 of a cubic yard.^[1]

The handy version sits inside those numbers. Divide 2,700 lb by 27 cubic feet and you get 100 lb for each cubic foot. Keep that one in your head for the rest of your project. A five gallon bucket holds 0.67 cubic feet, so a full bucket of sand weighs around 67 lb, which explains why your back complains after the third trip.^[1],[2]

Why wet sand comes in heavier

Sand is mostly grains with air between them. Those gaps take up a large share of any pile, somewhere around a third of the space or more, and a dry grain does nothing to fill them.

Rain changes that. Water sinks through the pile and pushes the air out of those gaps, and the sand keeps its grains while gaining the weight of the water. A fully soaked cubic yard can pass 3,000 lb, and it will sit there holding that water for days if the pile has nowhere to drain.

Water comes in at about 62 lb for every cubic foot, and that is the whole story. Fill even part of the empty space and the extra pounds add up fast.

Damp sand has a quirk worth knowing. A thin film of water pushes the grains slightly apart, so lightly damp sand can take up more room than dry sand of the same weight. Soak it fully and it slumps back down. This is why a damp pile can look bigger than the numbers say it should.

For you, this matters in two ways.

Sand sold by the ton carries whatever water it holds, so damp sand brings a little less actual sand per ton. That is normal for a washed or stockpiled product, and it is one more reason to round up on an order rather than cut it fine.

Hauling is the other. A barrow of wet sand is far harder to push than a dry one, and the gap grows on soft ground, so if rain is on the way, a tarp over the pile keeps it light and easy to work.

Grain size moves it less than you would expect

Mason Sand is fine, Concrete Sand is coarse, Fill Sand comes unscreened and Playground Sand is fine and washed. Those are real differences in how each one behaves, but they change the weight per yard very little. Sand with a wider mix of grain sizes packs a little tighter, because small grains settle between larger ones.^[1]

Local rock matters too. Sand from one source may run slightly heavier than sand from another, depending on the minerals in it.

None of that should change your order. Use 2,700 lb for planning, and let the half ton rounding absorb the rest.^[1],[3]

Yards to tons, and tons to yards

Two conversions cover every sand job. For tons, take the yards, multiply by 2,700 and divide by 2,000, which is the same as multiplying by 1.35. For yards, multiply tons by 0.74.^[1],[2]

A 2 ton order fills about 1.48 cubic yards. Five tons fills about 3.7, and 10 tons fills about 7.4. We sell sand by the ton, so start in feet, move to yards and finish in tons.^[1]

The calculator does all of that for you. Working it by hand once is still worth it, because you will spot a wrong depth at once.

A sandbox, worked through

Take a backyard sandbox measuring 6 feet by 7 feet, with sand to a depth of 10 inches. The area is 42 square feet. Ten inches is 10 over 12 of a foot, and 42 times 10 divided by 12 gives 35 cubic feet.^[2]

Divide 35 by 27 and you have 1.3 cubic yards. Multiply by 1.35 and the box needs 1.75 tons of sand.^[1],[2]

Our minimum is 2 tons, so that is the order. Playground Sand, fine and washed, has a median delivered total of $479. City totals run from $418 to $709, a wide spread, so check your own ZIP.^[1],[3],[4]

The spare quarter ton is 500 lb, or about 5 cubic feet. Keep it under a tarp. Sand in a play box packs down and gets carried off in shoes, and you will want some to top it up by summer.

Put a layer of non-woven fabric under the sand before you fill the box. Rain can drain out through it, and the sand stays clean and separate from the soil below.^[3]

A paver bed, worked through

Now take a paver patio 13 feet by 24 feet, with Concrete Sand laid as a 1 inch bed over a compacted base. The area is 312 square feet. One inch is a twelfth of a foot, so divide 312 by 12 and you have 26 cubic feet.^[2]

That is 0.96 cubic yards, and at 1.35 tons each they come to about 1.3 tons. The calculator would round that to 1.5 tons, and the 2 ton minimum takes it to 2 tons. The median total is $658.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

Concrete Sand suits this job because it is coarse. The sharp grains hold a screeded surface and let water pass. Fine, round sand can shift and pump up through the joints when it gets wet.^[1]

The bed stays thin on purpose. Screed it flat at 1 inch and lay the pavers on it, and resist the urge to deepen it to hide a rough base. Thick sand settles in patches as people walk on it, and the dips show. Fix the base first.

With about 0.7 tons left, you have roughly 14 cubic feet to spare, enough to repair a low spot or patch the edges of the bed.

Moving 2 tons by hand

Two tons is 4,000 lb. A barrow holding about 2 cubic feet carries 200 lb of sand, so that pile means about 20 trips.^[1]

The driver dumps where you mark, if the truck can reach it. Set the pile as near the work as you can, and on a surface you can shovel from. Flag gates, slopes, low wires and soft ground in the delivery notes.

Lay a wide board over soft lawn or wet ground so the wheel stays on top. A second person with a second barrow cuts the job in half, and a third to fill the barrows makes it go faster still.^[3]