The volume is exact. The weight is not ours.
Area times depth is arithmetic and this page will always give it to you.
Tons are a different matter: pea gravel is published as a range with no
typical value, and converting a volume to a weight means choosing a point
on that range. Everyone else chooses one silently. This tool leaves the
field open and asks your supplier instead.
yd³ = area (ft²) × depth (in) ÷ 12 ÷ 27
200 ft² at 3 in
50 ft³
1.85 yd³
1.42 m³
Tons: whatever your yard says a yard weighs.
Two inches, three at most
Pea gravel is rounded. That is what makes it comfortable to walk on and
pleasant to look at, and it is also why it moves. Two inches over fabric
is enough to cover in a bed; three is right where it is walked on
regularly. Beyond that you are wading rather than walking, and the extra
depth buys nothing but stone that migrates faster.
Cubic yards by area and depth
From this calculator with no waste allowance. Volumes are exact; the weight of a cubic yard is your supplier's figure, not one this page picked.
It needs an edge and it needs fabric
An edge, because rounded stone rolls and a bed with no
physical restraint scatters itself across the lawn within a season or
two. Fabric, because without it the gravel works down
into the soil and a three inch layer quietly becomes two with mud showing
through. Gravel is also the one place where landscape fabric genuinely
works long-term: stone does not decompose into a seed bed the way bark
does.
Not a driveway surface
Pea gravel has no angular faces, so nothing interlocks and tyres push it
aside. It ruts, it migrates to the edges, and it needs topping up.
Driveways want angular stone over a compacted angular base. Pea gravel
belongs in beds, on paths, around a fire pit, and as a decorative border
to a drive rather than the drive itself.
The rest of the bed
Underneath it, the
landscape fabric calculator
counts rolls with the seam overlap paid for, which is the part every other
fabric estimate leaves out. For a coarser or more decorative stone, the
river rock calculator
works the same way, and for a drive that has to carry vehicles the
gravel driveway calculator
does a proper two-layer build with a compaction allowance. Where the
gravel is going around something laid, the
flagstone calculator
handles the stone and the
raised bed soil calculator
the growing medium beside it.
Common questions
How much pea gravel do I need?
Area times depth, converted to cubic yards. Two hundred square feet at three inches deep is 50 cubic feet, which is 1.85 cubic yards. The table below does the common sizes at two, three and four inches. What the tool will not do is turn that into tons unless you tell it what your supplier's gravel weighs.
How deep should pea gravel be?
Two inches over landscape fabric in a planting bed, three where people walk on it, and no more than three or four anywhere. Pea gravel is rounded, which is exactly why it feels good underfoot and exactly why it moves: pile it deeper and you are walking in it rather than on it. If you need depth for drainage, that is a different material — angular stone locks together and pea gravel does not.
How many tons is a cubic yard of pea gravel?
This site will not tell you, and that is deliberate. Pea gravel is published as a range — 2,700 to 2,850 lb per cubic yard on the road-specification figures nearest to it — with no typical value, and picking a point off a range is inventing a number nobody printed. Your supplier knows what theirs weighs. Enter their figure in the tool and it gives you tons; leave it blank and you get cubic yards, which are exact either way.
Should I put fabric under it?
Under gravel, yes — this is the case where landscape fabric actually earns its keep. Stone does not decompose into a seed bed the way bark mulch does, so the barrier stays a barrier, and its second job matters more: it stops the gravel working down into the soil, which is how a three inch layer becomes a two inch layer with mud showing through. The fabric calculator handles the overlap that every roll estimate forgets.
Does pea gravel need an edge?
More than any other loose material. Rounded stone rolls, and without a physical edge it migrates onto the lawn, into the beds and down the drive over a season or two. Steel, aluminium or a timber edge all work; what does not work is a shallow trench edge, because the gravel simply fills it and keeps going. Budget for the edging at the same time as the stone — retro-fitting it means moving the gravel twice.
Is pea gravel good for a driveway?
Not on its own. It has no angular faces to interlock, so vehicle tyres push it aside and it ruts and migrates. A gravel driveway wants a compacted angular base with an angular running surface; pea gravel over that will simply end up at the edges. Where it does work on a drive is as a decorative border or a parking apron that is not turned on. The gravel driveway calculator handles a proper two-layer build.
What size is pea gravel?
Roughly three eighths of an inch, rounded, and typically screened from a river or glacial deposit — which is where the roundness comes from. Grades vary between yards and so do the names; some sell it by a sieve size and some just call it pea gravel. Ask for the size range if it matters to you, because a coarser grade behaves noticeably differently underfoot and needs a little more depth to look right.
Should I buy by the yard or by the bag?
By the yard, once you are past a small bed. 1.85 cubic yards is the worked example above, and at half a cubic foot a bag that is over ninety bags — a pallet's worth of lifting and a lot of plastic. Bags make sense for a planter, a repair or somewhere a truck cannot tip. The tool has fields for a bulk price, a delivery charge and a yard minimum, because the minimum is what usually decides whether bulk is actually cheaper.
Sources
- Pea gravel density
- 2700–2850 lb/yd3
No typical value was supplied for pea gravel, so none is stored. Using a computed midpoint would be an invented constant.
Unit conversions are exact by definition and need no source.
How we choose and cite these figures
