Fill Dirt Delivery

Clean fill, and what "clean" means

Fill dirt is screened soil sold by the ton for moving volume. The word that matters is clean: no roots, no construction debris, no trash, no significant organic content. Organic material rots, and soil with organics in it keeps settling for years after you thought the job was finished.

Where a specification calls for structural fill, the requirements are tighter — a specified gradation and a compaction standard, usually verified by a testing lab. If your drawing says structural fill, tell us, because that is a different order from generic clean fill.

For most residential and light-commercial work — raising a low corner of a yard, building a pad, backfilling an old pool — clean fill is what you want and what we deliver.

Fill dirt or fill sand?

Both move volume; they behave differently.

Fill dirt is cheaper per ton and better for landscape work — berms, contouring, planting areas — because it holds moisture and supports growth. It is fine under non-critical areas.

Fill sand drains freely and compacts more predictably. Under slabs, pools and structures it is generally the better choice, and many engineers will specify it over dirt for exactly that reason.

A common approach on a pad is fill dirt for the bulk of the lift with sand and then limerock base on top, so you are not paying sand prices for volume that does not need it.

Placing fill so it stops settling

Fill dumped in a heap and pushed flat will settle for years. Whatever you build on top of it will crack, tilt or develop low spots, and that failure shows up long after the trucks have left.

Place it in lifts — 6 to 12 inches at a time — wet each lift and compact it before the next goes down. On a small job a plate compactor is enough. On a pad, use a roller. On anything engineered, a testing lab will confirm density as you go.

Budget the time. Compacting properly roughly doubles the labour of placing fill, and it is the difference between a pad that holds and one that does not.

Ordering the right amount

Fill is where quantity errors are most expensive, because the volumes are large and the arithmetic is done in cubic yards while the material is sold in tons.

Fill dirt runs about 1.25 tons per cubic yard. One ton covers roughly 39 square feet at 6 inches, or 19 square feet at a foot. Then add for compaction — expect to lose 15 to 25 percent of loose volume as you compact, so order above the theoretical figure.

Worked example: raising a 40 by 50 foot pad by 8 inches is 2,000 square feet at 0.67 feet, which is 1,333 cubic feet, which is 49 cubic yards. At 1.25 tons per yard that is 62 tons, plus 20 percent for compaction gives about 74 tons — call it four loads. Our tonnage calculator handles this including the compaction allowance.

Haul-off and backhaul

Plenty of jobs need dirt gone rather than delivered. We backhaul clean fill, dirt, concrete and asphalt to permitted yards, and combining that with a delivery on the same run is usually cheaper than paying for two separate trips.

If you are cutting one part of a site and filling another, tell us — sometimes the cheapest answer is moving your own material rather than buying and disposing.

Specification

Figures are typical, not guaranteed. Weights and gradations vary between pits and sources. If your job is specified, send us the relevant plan sheet and we will match it — and confirm quantities against your own scale tickets once you are running.

What it is used for

• Raising lot grade and correcting low spots
• Building up pads before base and slab work
• Backfilling excavations and old pool removals
• Landscape berms, mounds and contouring
• Filling behind retaining walls and seawalls
• General bulk volume where bearing is not critical

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.

Fill Dirt — common questions

Where we deliver Fill Dirt

From Jupiter down to Key West — Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties. Mainland deliveries are same or next day; the Keys are scheduled runs.

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