21 Materials. One Invoice.
Gravel, rock, base, sand, fill and recycled aggregate — sourced from whichever pit or yard is closest to your job and hauled straight to site.
Everything below is delivered anywhere from Jupiter down to Key West, in any quantity from a single cubic yard to twenty-plus truckloads a day. Click any material for gradation, weights, coverage figures and the answers to the questions people actually ask about it.
The vocabulary, translated
South Florida does not use the national aggregate vocabulary, and if you are new to the market that causes confusion. A few translations worth knowing:
- Limerock is what the rest of the country calls crushed limestone. It is the base material almost everything here is built on.
- Pea rock is pea gravel.
- Rock and stone are used interchangeably — #57 rock and #57 stone are the same gradation.
- Crushed concrete is recycled concrete aggregate, and it is a serious base material here rather than a second-best.
- Shell rock is a cheaper compactable base with no direct equivalent in most other markets.
- Millings are reclaimed asphalt pavement.
The limerock family
South Florida is built on limestone, and "limerock" covers several distinct products rather than one. They are not interchangeable, and buying the wrong one is the most common ordering mistake we see.
| Product | What it is | Buy it for |
|---|---|---|
| Limerock Base | Screened and well graded, coarse down to fines. Certified to a bearing value, typically LBR 100. | Specified base course under pavement, slabs and pavers. |
| Limerock Fill | Unscreened or oversize. Variable gradation, no certified bearing value, cheaper. | Bulk grade raising, backfill, bridging soft ground. |
| Limerock Screenings | Only the fine fraction — 1/4 inch down to dust. Packs tight, sheds water. | Arena footing, pipe bedding, top-dressing, filling voids. |
| #57 / #67 / #89 Rock | Crushed limestone, washed so the fines are removed. Open-graded. | Drainage, French drains, under-slab, concrete aggregate. |
| Ballast Rock | Large washed stone, roughly 3/4 to 2-1/2 inch. | Roof ballast, construction entrances, heavy drainage, rail. |
| Rip Rap | Armour stone, 6 inches to 3 feet. | Seawalls, shorelines, scour protection. |
The short version: washed means drainage, graded with fines means load-bearing, and screenings alone mean neither. Tell us the job and we will tell you which one it is.
Browse by category
Gravel
Stone
Base
Recycled
Sand
Earth
Decorative
Choosing the right material
Most ordering mistakes are not quantity errors — they are the wrong material bought for the job. This is the short version of what goes where.
| If the job is… | Use | Not | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base under pavement, inspected | Limerock base | Shell rock | Spec work needs the certified bearing value. Shell rock will not satisfy LBR 100. |
| Base under pavement, not inspected | Crushed concrete | Virgin limerock | Performs at or near limerock, gains strength over time, costs less. |
| Driveway, pad or ranch road | Shell rock | Spec limerock | Nobody is testing the bearing value. Put the saving into thickness. |
| Driveway wearing surface | Asphalt millings | Loose stone | Binds in the sun into a firm dark surface that does not wash out or dust. |
| French drain or drainfield | #57 rock | Crusher run | Washed and open-graded, so water moves through it. Anything with fines clogs. |
| Under pavers — bedding | Washed concrete sand | Mason sand or stone dust | Only well-graded coarse sand locks under load. One inch, screeded. |
| Permeable paver bedding | #89 rock | Concrete sand | Permeable systems are a different detail — open-graded stone, not sand. |
| Mortar, play areas | Mason sand | Concrete sand | Fine and uniform, so it trowels smoothly and is soft underfoot. |
| Raising grade under a slab | Fill sand | Fill dirt | Drains freely and compacts predictably. Dirt holds moisture and moves. |
| Landscape grade, berms | Fill dirt | Fill sand | Cheaper per ton, and bearing capacity is not the concern. |
| Under new sod | Topsoil | Fill dirt | Fill is deliberately low in organics. Sod on fill declines once it exhausts what it arrived with. |
| Pool deck, path, borders | Pea rock | #57 rock | Rounded and smooth underfoot. Angular stone is uncomfortable and looks harsh. |
| Seawall, shoreline, scour | Rip rap | Anything smaller | Stone has to be heavy enough that design-storm flow cannot move it. |
Not sure? Call and describe the job. We would rather spend two minutes on the phone than deliver the wrong thing.
Working out how much you need
Material is sold by the ton. Plans are drawn in cubic yards. That mismatch is where most ordering errors come from, and they are expensive in both directions — running short stops a crew, and over-ordering by a large margin ties up money in a pile.
The arithmetic: multiply length by width by depth in feet, divide by 27 to get cubic yards, then multiply by the material's weight per yard. Most rock runs about 1.35 to 1.4 tons per cubic yard; compacted base is heavier at roughly 1.65; topsoil is lighter at about 1.15.
Then allow for compaction. Base and fill lose roughly 20 to 25 percent of their loose volume once they are properly compacted, so the tonnage you order should be above the theoretical plan volume. Our tonnage calculator builds that allowance in and converts the answer into truckloads.
Order slightly heavy. Two extra tons in a pile costs almost nothing and always gets used. Two tons short on a Friday afternoon costs you a whole extra delivery and a crew standing around.
Why contractors use us
We are a sourcing and trucking operation rather than a pit. That is the whole model, and it is worth understanding because it changes what we are good at.
We do not own a quarry, so we are not trying to sell you what our quarry happens to have. We buy from whichever pit, yard or recycler is closest to your job and has the material you actually specified, and we haul it to you. On a market this spread out — nine counties and both coasts of the peninsula — that flexibility is usually worth more than owning a hole in the ground.
The practical version of that: one call, one invoice, one point of contact. If a job needs base rock, bedding sand, fill and drainage stone, that is one quote from us instead of four suppliers to chase, four deliveries to coordinate and four invoices to reconcile.
We are locally owned, based in Fort Lauderdale, and there is no call centre. When you ring, you get somebody who knows what a tri-axle can and cannot get into.
Stop Babysitting Your
Material Suppliers. Call Us.
A locked quote in under an hour. Trucks on site when you need them. One invoice when the job's done.