Unit Weight of Topsoil
The most variable material in the yard: topsoil is mineral soil plus organics plus whatever moisture the week provided, and its weight moves accordingly.
| Dry, loose, screened | 900 to 1100 kg/m3 |
| As delivered, typical moisture | 1200 to 1400 kg/m3 |
| Saturated after heavy rain | up to 1700 kg/m3 |
| In kN/m3, moist | 12 to 14 |
| In pounds per cubic foot, moist | 75 to 87 |
| One cubic yard, moist | roughly 2000 to 2400 lb |
| A one tonne bulk bag | roughly 0.7 to 0.8 m3 |
Notes for design and site
Moisture and organic content dominate everything here. Organics hold water the way mineral soil never does, so the same pile can gain a fifth of its weight in a wet week. That matters more for truck payloads than for takeoffs: a tandem that hauls 15 t of dry screened soil is over weight with the identical volume after rain.
Spreading has its own arithmetic. Tipped topsoil sits fluffed and settles 15 to 20 percent after watering and a few weeks of weather, so a lawn dressed to a finished 100 mm wants roughly 120 mm loose. Order by settled volume plus that allowance, not by the depth of the fresh pile.
Related Calculators and Reference
- Mulch and Soil Calculator: yards, bags and loads from your dimensions.
- Unit Weight of Soil: the engineering version, soil type by soil type.
- Unit Weight of Gravel: the other half of most landscaping orders.
- Excavation Cut and Fill Calculator: when the topsoil is coming off, not going on.
- USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: soil science and survey resources.