Crushed Stone Calculator
Working out how much #57 crushed stone to buy for a drainage bed, French drain, paver base layer, or a clean driveway top coat? Enter your area and depth and this calculator returns the cubic yards, tons, and 50 lb bags you need. #57 is washed, open-graded stone — it stays loose so water drains straight through the voids, which also means there is no compaction to plan for, just a small waste allowance.
Total weight ≈ 1,629.63 lb (0.81 tons). Bulk material is heavy — check your vehicle's payload/GVWR; over ~1 ton, delivery is usually safer than hauling it yourself.
Bag or bulk?
You need only about 0.68 cubic yards (0.81 tons). Under ~2 cubic yards, bagged is usually the better call — you can carry the bags yourself and skip arranging a bulk drop, with no leftover pile to deal with.
- 33 × 50 lb bag
Quantities are planning estimates — confirm with your supplier.
How it works
We take the area you enter and multiply by your depth to get the geometric volume (area × depth). Enter dimensions in feet, inches, yards, or metric — everything is converted to feet first.
Clean #57 stone is open-graded, so we add no compaction: the angular pieces lock loosely and the gaps between them are the whole point — that is how the bed drains. (Dense, dust-bound bases are the opposite; they settle when tamped and need a compaction allowance — that job belongs to crusher run, not #57.) On top of the geometric volume we add the default 10% waste for spillage, raking, and uneven trench walls.
What you get: cubic yards, tons (from #57's loose density), and 50 lb bag counts. Bag counts are rounded up so you are not left a few stones short; volumes and tonnage are rounded for ordering. What we leave out: delivery trips — loose stone is heavy, so we report total weight and let you match it to your vehicle's payload rather than guessing loads. Grade guidance: #57 (3/4") is the workhorse for general drainage, French drains, the open-graded base under a paver system, and driveway layers; a smaller washed grade like #8 (a planned future option here) suits tighter pipe bedding and the thin bedding course set directly under pavers. If your supplier instead hands you #411 or anything described as "stone with dust," that packs dense — size it on the crusher run calculator instead.
Worked example
French drain trench, 40 ft × 2 ft, 12 in of #57
Filling a 40 ft × 2 ft French-drain trench a full 12 inches deep with clean #57 stone. #57 is open-graded — water runs straight through the voids — so there is no compaction to add; just the default 10% for spillage and uneven trench walls.
This is well into bulk-delivery territory; ordering loose by the cubic yard beats counting out dozens of bags.
- Area
- 80 sq ft
- Volume (in place)
- 2.96 cu yd
- Order (compaction + waste)
- 3.26 cu yd
- Weight
- 3.91 tons
- 50 lb bag
- 157
Coverage at a glance
| Depth | 1 ton covers | 1 cu yd covers |
|---|---|---|
| 2" | 135 sq ft | 162 sq ft |
| 3" | 90 sq ft | 108 sq ft |
| 4" | 68 sq ft | 81 sq ft |
| 6" | 45 sq ft | 54 sq ft |
FAQ
What is #57 crushed stone used for?
#57 is the go-to clean stone for drainage and decorative work: French drains and drainage beds, the base or top layer of a gravel driveway, the open-graded base layer under a paver system, pipe bedding, and dry wells. It is too coarse to be the final bedding course right under pavers — that thin layer is sand or a smaller washed stone — but it is the drainage base below it. Because it is washed and open-graded, water passes straight through it, which is why it shows up almost anywhere water needs somewhere to go.
How much crushed stone do I need for a French drain?
Enter the trench length, width, and how deep you want the stone above and below the pipe, and the calculator returns cubic yards, tons, and bags. The worked example on this page runs a typical 40 ft trench end to end so you can see how the numbers come together for a drain of your own size.
Does #57 crushed stone compact?
No — and that is the point. #57 is open-graded with no fine dust to bind it, so it stays loose and lets water drain through the voids. Because it does not pack down, the calculator adds zero compaction for it. If you actually need a surface that firms up underfoot, such as a tamped driveway base, reach for crusher run instead, which is dense and settles when compacted.
How many tons of crushed stone are in a cubic yard?
Roughly 1.2 tons per cubic yard for #57, based on a loose density near 2,400 lb/yd³. That is a rule-of-thumb figure; the calculator uses the exact density on file so your tonnage matches what the quarry will load, rather than a rounded estimate.
What is the difference between #57 and #411 or crusher run?
#57 is washed clean — all one size of stone with the dust screened out — so it drains and never really packs down. #411 and crusher run are the opposite: they keep the stone dust mixed in, which lets them compact into a dense, firm base. Use #57 wherever you want drainage or a decorative clean look; if your job needs a surface that locks together and holds, size it on the crusher run calculator instead.