Gravel & Rock Delivery in Fort Lauderdale
Our home city. Shortest haul we run, and the fastest turnaround we can offer anywhere.
Fort Lauderdale is where our yard is, which makes it the shortest haul and the fastest turnaround in our entire service area. If the material is staged and you call in the morning, there is a very good chance it is on your site the same afternoon.
It is also the most operationally interesting city we deliver into, because Fort Lauderdale is not one place. Delivering a load of rip rap to a seawall on Las Olas Isles is a completely different job from dropping limerock base at a warehouse pad off Powerline Road, and the truck, the timing and the approach all change accordingly.
Building in Fort Lauderdale
The thing that defines construction here is water. Fort Lauderdale has roughly 165 miles of navigable waterways — the reason it gets called the Venice of America — and an enormous proportion of the eastern city is finger islands, canal frontage and seawall.
That produces a category of work you do not see inland. Seawall repair and replacement, dock and davit installation, scour protection, shoreline armouring. All of it needs rip rap and armour stone, and much of it needs that stone delivered to a site with a narrow street, mature ficus overhead and a neighbour who parks across the approach.
The water table drives the second category. Groundwater sits high across the city and very high east of Federal Highway, so drainage details are on almost every set of plans. #57 rock for French drains and under-slab layers is our highest-volume single material in the city limits.
Then there is the redevelopment. Flagler Village, Progresso and the downtown core have been rebuilding continuously, which means a steady demand for base rock, structural fill and crushed concrete on infill sites — usually tight ones, frequently with no laydown area, often needing deliveries timed around a road closure or a crane pick.
And behind all of that is ordinary residential Fort Lauderdale: Victoria Park driveways, Coral Ridge pool decks, Rio Vista landscape work. Single loads of pea rock, topsoil and base, delivered to houses on streets built long before anyone imagined a tri-axle.
Materials we deliver to Fort Lauderdale
We carry 19 materials and will haul any of them here. These are the six Fort Lauderdale orders most, with the specification detail you need to order correctly the first time.
#57 Rock in Fort Lauderdale
The workhorse drainage stone of South Florida. Open-graded, angular, and the default answer whenever water has to move through rock instead of sitting on it.
#57 is a gradation, not a rock type. The number comes from the AASHTO/ASTM sizing chart, and it describes stone that passes a 1-1/2 inch sieve and is retained on a No. 4 — in practice, pieces running roughly three-quarters of an inch to an inch, with the fines washed out.
In most of the country #57 is granite or trap rock. In South Florida it is crushed limestone, quarried locally, which is why it costs a fraction of what the same gradation costs in Georgia and why nearly every drainage detail on a Broward or Miami-Dade plan set specifies it. You will hear it called #57 stone by engineers and spec writers and 57 rock by everyone actually standing on the job. Same material.
The defining property is what has been removed. Because the fines are washed out, the stone will not knit together and will not compact. Stack it and it stays a pile of loose angular rock with roughly a third of its volume as open void. That void is the whole point: water runs straight through it instead of perching on top.
Full #57 Rock specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Gradation | AASHTO / ASTM No. 57 — passes 1-1/2", retained on No. 4 sieve |
| Material | Crushed limestone (South Florida oolite or Ocala formation) |
| Shape | Angular, crushed faces |
| Washed | Yes — minimal fines |
| Drainage | Free-draining; roughly 30–40% void space |
| Compaction | Does not compact — consolidates only, no proctor spec |
| Approx. weight | 1.35 tons per cubic yard (2,700 lb) |
| Coverage at 2" | ~110 sq ft per ton |
| Coverage at 4" | ~55 sq ft per ton |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- French drains and trench drains — the standard backfill stone
- Septic drainfields and pump chambers
- Under-slab drainage layer beneath concrete
- Pipe bedding and backfill where flow matters more than support
- Coarse aggregate in ready-mix concrete
- Loose driveways and equipment pads where mud is the enemy
- Erosion control at downspouts and swale outfalls
Is #57 stone the same as #57 rock?
Yes. "Stone" is the term on plan sets and in ASTM/AASHTO documentation; "rock" is what it is called on job sites throughout South Florida. Both refer to the same washed, open-graded gradation running roughly 3/4" to 1".
Limerock Base in Fort Lauderdale
The material South Florida is built on. If it is paved, there is almost certainly limerock underneath it.
Limerock is mined limestone crushed and graded so that it runs the full range from roughly three and a half inches down to powder. That full gradation is the entire point. The coarse pieces carry load, the fines fill the voids between them, and when you add water and roll it, the fines cement the whole thing into a slab you can drive a loaded truck across.
South Florida sits on limestone, which means the material is quarried locally and hauled short distances — and that is why base here costs what it costs. In most of the United States, road base is crushed granite or gravel trucked in from a distance. Here, the Miami oolite formation in Miami-Dade and the Ocala limestone further north put the quarry inside the market.
You will see it written as limerock, lime rock and crushed limestone depending on who wrote the document, and heard as base rock or DOT base on site. Engineers specify it by FDOT section number. It is all the same product.
Full Limerock Base specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Common specification | FDOT Standard Specifications Section 911 — limerock base course |
| Bearing value | LBR 100 typical for base course; lower grades exist for sub-base |
| Material | Mined limestone — Miami oolite in Dade, Ocala formation further north |
| Gradation | Well-graded from roughly 3-1/2" down to fines — the fines are what make it bind |
| Compaction | Placed in lifts, typically 6" compacted, to 98% modified Proctor |
| Approx. weight | 1.65 tons per cubic yard compacted (1.4 loose) |
| Coverage at 4" | ~45 sq ft per ton compacted |
| Coverage at 6" | ~30 sq ft per ton compacted |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- Base course under asphalt roads, driveways and parking lots
- Base under concrete slabs, aprons and sidewalks
- Compacted base beneath paver installations
- Structural fill and sub-base where bearing capacity is specified
- Stabilised construction entrances and haul roads
- Pads for equipment, containers and modular buildings
What is the difference between limerock and crushed limestone?
Nothing meaningful in this market. "Crushed limestone" is the generic description, "limerock" is the South Florida term, and FDOT documentation calls it limerock base. Same material.
Fill Sand in Fort Lauderdale
Unwashed, inexpensive, and bought by the load. The volume sand for moving grade around a site.
Fill sand is the cheapest way to move a large volume of granular material onto a site. It is natural, unwashed sand — some silt content, variable gradation depending on where it came from — and it is bought when what you need is bulk and compactability rather than cleanliness.
The most common uses in our area are backfill and grade raising. Pool contractors use a lot of it for over-dig backfill. Septic installers use it around tanks and in drainfields. Site contractors use it to bring a lot up to grade before base goes down.
Because it is unwashed, it is not the right choice anywhere fines would cause a problem — not under pavers, not in concrete, not as drainage stone. For those, buy concrete sand or #57 rock.
Full Fill Sand specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Natural unwashed sand with some silt content |
| Gradation | Variable by source |
| Washed | No — use concrete or mason sand where cleanliness matters |
| Drainage | Good, though less free-draining than washed sand |
| Approx. weight | 1.35 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 6" | ~36 sq ft per ton |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- General site grading and grade raising
- Backfill around foundations, walls and structures
- Septic system installation and drainfield sand
- Pool backfill and over-dig fill
- Pipe bedding where a washed product is not specified
- Bulk volume fill beneath slabs and pads
What is the difference between fill sand and fill dirt?
Fill sand is granular, free-draining and compacts predictably — better under structures. Fill dirt is soil, cheaper, holds moisture, and is used for landscape grade changes and general volume.
Rip Rap in Fort Lauderdale
Armour stone for the places where water is actively trying to take your property back.
Rip rap is specified by class, and the class is driven by how much energy the water carries. Sheltered canal banks in inland Broward take smaller stone than an exposed shoreline on the ocean side of the Keys, and a scour apron at a culvert outfall is sized for the velocity coming out of the pipe.
The general rule is that stone has to be heavy enough that design-storm flow cannot move it, and graded enough that smaller pieces fill the voids between larger ones so the mat locks up rather than acting as a pile of loose boulders. Almost every properly built installation also has a filter layer underneath — geotextile fabric, a bedding stone course, or both — to stop the soil beneath from washing out through the gaps. Rip rap placed directly on sand will eventually sink into it.
We are the supplier, not the engineer. If your project is permitted, the plan set will name the class and the layer thicknesses; send us that page and we will match it. If it is unpermitted seawall repair on your own property, tell us the exposure and we will tell you honestly what size the neighbours are using.
Full Rip Rap specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Common classes | Bedding stone, rubble rip rap, bank-and-shore rip rap |
| Size range | Roughly 6" to 36" depending on class and exposure |
| Material | Quarried limestone; occasionally recycled concrete rubble where permitted |
| Shape | Angular, blocky — interlocks and resists rolling |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard placed |
| Filter layer | Geotextile or bedding stone almost always required beneath |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- Seawall toe protection and scour aprons
- Shoreline and canal bank armouring
- Slope stabilisation on retention ponds and lake banks
- Culvert and outfall headwall protection
- Living shoreline and mangrove edge stabilisation projects
- Temporary construction entrances and haul road crossings
Do I need a permit to put rip rap on my seawall?
Almost certainly, if any part of the work sits below the mean high water line. Depending on location that can involve FDEP, the South Florida Water Management District, the Army Corps of Engineers and a local marine permit. Confirm before ordering material.
Pea Rock in Fort Lauderdale
Small, rounded and smooth underfoot. Called pea gravel everywhere else — in Florida it is pea rock.
Same material, different vocabulary. The rest of the country calls it pea gravel; South Florida calls it pea rock, and if you ask a yard here for pea gravel you will get a slight pause before they hand you the same thing.
It is a small, naturally rounded stone at about three-eighths of an inch nominal, washed clean, in a mix of tans, greys and off-whites. The rounded shape is what distinguishes it from #89 rock, which is a similar size but crushed and angular.
That difference drives where each one is used. Rounded feels good underfoot and looks softer, so pea rock goes on pool decks, paths and decorative areas. Angular locks under load, so #89 goes under pavers and around pipe.
Full Pea Rock specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Nominal size | 3/8 inch |
| Shape | Rounded and water-worn, not crushed |
| Washed | Yes |
| Colour | Mixed tans, greys and whites depending on source |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 2" | ~105 sq ft per ton |
| Coverage at 3" | ~70 sq ft per ton |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- Pool deck surrounds and landscape borders
- Walkways, paths and courtyard surfaces
- Drainage beds and dry creek features
- Playground surfacing
- Exposed aggregate concrete finishes
- Ground cover in planting beds and side yards
- Under decks and in side-yard drainage runs
Is pea rock the same as pea gravel?
Yes. "Pea gravel" is the national term and "pea rock" is what it is called in South Florida. Same 3/8-inch rounded washed stone.
Crushed Concrete in Fort Lauderdale
Recycled, cheaper than virgin rock, and it gets harder with age. The most under-rated base material in the market.
Crushed concrete is exactly what the name says: concrete from demolition, crushed and screened to a base gradation. The reflex reaction is that recycled material must be inferior to virgin rock. In this application that reflex is wrong.
Concrete never fully hydrates. There is always unreacted cement left in the matrix, and when you crush it, expose fresh surfaces, add water and compact it, that residual cement goes back to work. A crushed concrete base continues to stiffen for months after it is placed. Limerock does not do that.
It is also angular with a full range of fines, which is exactly the gradation profile that makes a good compactable base. Properly processed material performs at or very near limerock base — and costs less, because the raw input is a disposal problem somebody was paying to get rid of.
Miami-Dade in particular runs on it. The density of demolition and redevelopment in Dade means there is a lot of feedstock and a lot of processing capacity, and crushed concrete is the default base on a large share of the private work there.
Full Crushed Concrete specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Reclaimed concrete crushed and screened to a base gradation |
| Gradation | Well-graded, commonly supplied to a limerock-base-equivalent grading |
| Contaminants | Processed to remove rebar, wood and trash; quality varies by producer |
| Behaviour | Residual cement rehydrates — the layer stiffens over months |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard compacted |
| Coverage at 4" | ~54 sq ft per ton compacted |
| Coverage at 6" | ~36 sq ft per ton compacted |
What Fort Lauderdale customers use it for
- Base course under asphalt, concrete and pavers where accepted
- Structural and general fill
- Driveways, parking areas and yard surfaces
- Construction entrances and haul roads
- Pipe backfill and trench restoration
- Levelling and grade correction on large sites
Is crushed concrete allowed as base on permitted jobs?
Often, but not universally. Many private and municipal specifications accept it; some require virgin limerock. Check the specification for your job before building on it.
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.
Ground conditions in Broward County
Two features of Broward ground drive nearly every material decision made here, and understanding them saves a great deal of money.
The water table
Groundwater sits close to the surface across the whole county and very close in the eastern third. In practical terms that means excavations fill, subgrades stay damp, and anything built without a drainage path will eventually sit in water.
The consequence for material selection is that open-graded washed stone appears in a very high proportion of details here. #57 rock under slabs, in French drains, around drainfields and at swale outfalls is not an optional refinement in Broward — it is the standard way of keeping water moving. Contractors arriving from drier markets consistently under-specify it and consistently regret doing so.
Limestone close to the surface
Underneath the sand cap is limestone, often within a few feet. That is why excavation here sometimes needs a hammer rather than a bucket, and it is why base rock is affordable: limerock is quarried locally rather than railed in from another state.
What this means for base
Subgrade preparation matters more than the base material you choose. A damp, poorly compacted subgrade will fail under any base, including the most expensive spec limerock. Stabilise and compact what is underneath, place base in lifts of roughly six inches compacted, water to near optimum moisture, and roll each lift before adding the next.
Get that right and crushed concrete will outlast a badly built limerock section at meaningfully lower cost. Get it wrong and no material saves you.
Getting a truck onto your Fort Lauderdale site
Access is the thing worth talking about before the truck leaves, and in this city it genuinely varies block to block.
The barrier island and the isles. Streets on Las Olas Isles, Harbor Beach and the Galt are narrow, often with no shoulder, mature canopy overhead and limited turning room at the end. A loaded tri-axle needs roughly 25 feet of vertical clearance to raise its bed. Tell us if the approach is tight and we will send the right truck or stage the load nearby and shuttle it in.
Downtown and Flagler Village. Infill sites with no storage, active lane closures and delivery windows dictated by the general contractor. Give us the window and the gate contact and we will hit it.
West of I-95. Generally straightforward — wider streets, room to manoeuvre, firm ground. This is where same-day is easiest.
Soft ground anywhere. A loaded truck raising a bed puts enormous weight on the rear axles. Freshly filled lots, wet swales and new sod will not hold it. Point us at firm ground for the drop.
Timing the work around the weather
South Florida has two seasons that matter to anyone moving material, and planning around them is worth real money.
Wet season, roughly May to October
Afternoon storms are close to daily and they are heavy. Three practical consequences:
- Ground goes soft fast. A site that carried a loaded truck on Monday may not on Wednesday. A tri-axle raising its bed puts enormous load through the rear axles, and we would far rather drop on firm ground near the road than bury a truck on your lot.
- Compaction gets harder. Base and fill compact best at near optimum moisture. Saturated material pumps under a roller instead of densifying, and no amount of extra passes fixes it.
- Uncovered piles absorb water. Topsoil and fine sand are worst affected — a soaked pile is significantly harder to spread. Tarp anything that will sit more than a day or two.
Dry season, roughly November to April
Better ground, easier compaction, and the busiest construction period of the year — which means pits and trucking are in higher demand and lead times stretch. Book earlier than you would in August.
The exception is asphalt millings, which want heat. Millings laid and rolled in June bind within days; the same load in January can take weeks and may need re-rolling.
Hurricane season, June through November
Two effects. Before a storm, demand for rip rap and shoreline protection spikes and everything gets tight. Afterwards, cleanup and repair work absorbs regional trucking capacity for weeks.
If your project involves shoreline protection, do it in the spring. Trying to armour a seawall with a named storm in the forecast is how people end up paying premium rates for whatever stone is left.
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.
How ordering works
There is no account to open and no portal to log into. You tell us the material, the tonnage, the site address and when you need it on the ground, and we come back with a locked, all-in delivered price — usually within the hour during business hours.
That price includes the haul. We quote delivered, not ex-pit, so the number we give you is the number on the invoice. If you are comparing quotes, check whether the other one has trucking in it.
What we need from you
- Material and gradation. If you are working from a plan set, send us the page — it saves a conversation.
- Quantity in tons, or the dimensions. If you have length, width and depth we will work the tonnage out. The tonnage calculator does it too.
- Site address and access notes. Overhead wires, gate widths, soft ground, HOA windows, where exactly the pile goes.
- When you need it. Same-day, a date, or a window against a construction programme.
Payment
First-time customers are COD or prepay for the first few loads. Once there is a clean payment history we move qualified customers onto standard credit terms with a signed credit application. We take ACH, check and major cards, and terms are confirmed at quote rather than negotiated at delivery.
On jobs where we are delivering material to real property we can preserve lien rights under Florida statute by filing a Notice to Owner within 45 days of first delivery. It protects everyone in the payment chain, and it means we get paid, which means you keep getting material on time.
Areas we cover in Fort Lauderdale
Las Olas Isles, Rio Vista, Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, Harbor Beach, Sailboat Bend, Flagler Village, Downtown, Progresso, Wilton Manors border, Oakland Park border, Edgewood, Melrose Park, Riverland, Coral Ridge Isles and the Galt Ocean Mile.
If your street is not on that list, we still deliver there — it is not an exhaustive index, just the areas we are asked about most.
Fort Lauderdale — common questions
Can you deliver same-day in Fort Lauderdale?
Can a truck get onto Las Olas Isles?
Do you deliver rip rap for seawall work?
What do most Fort Lauderdale homeowners order?
Broward County — general questions
How fast can you deliver in Broward?
What is the minimum order in Broward?
Can you deliver to gated communities and HOAs?
Do you work on Broward County and municipal projects?
Nearby cities we also serve
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Material on site in Fort Lauderdale when you need it, at a price that was locked before the truck left.