Building concrete projects, such as patios and walkways, are a great way to show off and enhance the appearance of your home or business. However, if you’re not careful, you can quickly find yourself spending too much money on concrete; one way to avoid it is to contact a concrete supply company in Arkansas to help you out.
This can also be avoided by doing some basic math to figure concrete needed for your project. Before we get started with calculating how much concrete you’ll need, you must understand what a cubic yard is and how it relates to the size of your job.
What’s A Cubic Yard?
A cubic yard is a volume measurement with units of area, length, and depth. Cubic yards are used in real estate and construction to measure loose materials like gravel, sand, dirt, concrete, or soil. Basically: it measures the amount of space available when you pile a specific material into a pile measuring by length and width that is later lifted vertically up into the air.
To figure out the volume of a space in cubic yards, you’ll first need to understand how to convert feet into yards. Once you have that down, the math is simple: multiply your square footage by 30 and divide by 1,728.
So How Do I Calculate How Much Concrete I Need?
Figuring out how much concrete you’ll need for a construction project is not as easy as it sounds. A few things will change the amount of concrete you’ll need. These things include the thickness of your finished slab, what type of finish (poured on slab or cast-in-place), the shape of the concrete, and down to the smallest measurement or fraction of an inch. One way to do it is by using a concrete calculator or concrete estimator online, but you still need to take measurements.
The first step is to determine the volume of loose soil you need to remove. Once you know the volume of loose soil, then use a drilling machine and hammer probe to determine how much volume there is in the soil (only after removing the top layer). Then subtract the volume from both measurements. This gives you the net volume of soil after removing it and subtracting for displacement.
The amount of concrete you need to pour depends on the size of your project. The common way to determine this is to multiply the length, width, and depth of each area that requires concrete for the final structure. Things like sidewalks, patios, slabs, and driveways have a standard depth of 4 inches.
The Formula
The cubic yard formula is as follows: Divide the length (10 ft.) by the width (10 ft.) by the depth (.35 ft., or 4 in.) by 27. (the number of cubic feet in a cubic yard). You will get 1.3 cubic yards. To determine how much concrete you need per yard, add 10% to account for slab depth and spillover differences.
Now that you know exactly how much concrete you need for your project, it’s a good idea to learn about quality control to ensure that you’re getting the highest-quality job possible.
Everything You Need For Your Construction Project
Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the cubic yard, its uses, and how this measurement can be applied to calculating how much concrete you need for your construction project. We only scratched the surface here— So if you’re looking to get the job well done, you need the best products; at Ridout Lumber, we offer high-quality concrete materials for any project you may have.
Concrete is one of the most widely used construction materials in the world, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you want the best of the best.