Gravel & Rock Delivery in Fort Myers
The commercial centre of the southwest coast, and still rebuilding.
Fort Myers is about a hundred and forty miles from our yard across Alligator Alley. It carries the largest concentration of commercial and institutional construction on the southwest coast, alongside a very large residential rebuilding workload.
Building in Fort Myers
The commercial corridors — Colonial, Daniels, US-41 and the Gateway area near the airport — drive base and fill volume. Retail, medical, light industrial and the continuing expansion east of I-75, all of it built on compacted limerock or crushed concrete.
Residentially, much of the work still traces back to Hurricane Ian in 2022. Elevation, drainage improvement, rebuilt driveways and slabs, and shoreline repair along the river and the canals. That means fill, base and rip rap.
Lehigh Acres is its own market on the same run — an enormous grid of platted lots being built out one at a time, each needing fill, base and a driveway. Single-load residential orders, constantly.
The McGregor corridor and the older riverside neighbourhoods bring mature-property renovation: paver driveways, pool decks and landscape renewal.
Fort Myers Beach, rebuilt substantially since Ian, adds coastal work with the access difficulties that come with a barrier island.
Materials we deliver to Fort Myers
We carry 20 materials and will haul any of them here. These are the six Fort Myers orders most, with the specification detail you need to order correctly the first time.
Limerock Base in Fort Myers
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 Myers 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.
Crushed Concrete in Fort Myers
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 Myers 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.
Fill Dirt in Fort Myers
Bulk soil for moving grade. Cheap by the ton, and the material most often ordered in the wrong quantity.
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.
Full Fill Dirt specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Screened soil, free of debris, roots, trash and organics |
| Grades | "Clean fill" for general use; "structural fill" where bearing is specified |
| Compaction | Place in lifts, water, compact — do not dump and leave |
| Approx. weight | 1.25 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 6" | ~39 sq ft per ton |
| Coverage at 12" | ~19 sq ft per ton |
What Fort Myers customers use it 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
How many tons of fill dirt do I need?
Work out cubic yards (length × width × depth in feet, divided by 27), multiply by about 1.25 to get tons, then add 15 to 25 percent for compaction. Our tonnage calculator does this and converts to truckloads.
Rip Rap in Fort Myers
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 Myers 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.
#57 Rock in Fort Myers
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 Myers 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".
Paver Sand in Fort Myers
Two different sands do two different jobs in a paver installation. Using the wrong one for either is why patios go wavy.
A paver installation uses sand twice, for two completely different purposes, and the materials are not interchangeable.
Bedding sand goes under the pavers — a one-inch screeded layer that the pavers are set into and then vibrated down onto. Its job is to provide a consistent setting bed and to lock under load. This must be washed concrete sand, graded to ASTM C33.
Joint sand goes between the pavers after they are laid, swept into the joints and vibrated in. Its job is to transfer load from one paver to the next so the field acts as an interlocked surface rather than a collection of loose blocks. This is a finer sand, or a polymeric sand that sets when wetted.
Get either one wrong and the installation fails in a way that looks like bad workmanship.
Full Paver Sand specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Bedding material | Washed concrete sand to ASTM C33 fine aggregate grading |
| Bedding thickness | 1 inch screeded — consistent, never variable |
| Joint material | Fine washed joint sand, or polymeric sand for stabilised joints |
| Joint width | Typically 1/16" to 3/16" for interlocking pavers |
| Base beneath | Compacted limerock, crushed concrete or shell rock |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 1" | ~215 sq ft per ton |
What Fort Myers customers use it for
- Bedding course beneath interlocking concrete pavers
- Bedding beneath flagstone, travertine and slab paving
- Joint filling and stabilisation between pavers
- Pool deck and patio paver installations
- Driveway paver installations over compacted base
What sand goes under pavers?
Washed concrete sand graded to ASTM C33, screeded to exactly one inch. Not mason sand, not stone dust, not fill sand.
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 Lee County
Lee County construction is shaped by two things: an extraordinary amount of water frontage, and the rebuilding that followed Hurricane Ian in September 2022.
Canals, and a great many of them
Cape Coral alone has something in the region of four hundred miles of canals — more than any other city in the world. Add the Caloosahatchee, the barrier islands and the canal networks through Fort Myers, and the result is a seawall and shoreline market unlike anywhere else on this coast.
That means sustained demand for rip rap, armour stone and scour protection, and it means a lot of jobs where the drop point is a waterfront lot with limited frontage.
Rebuilding
Ian made landfall in this county, and the work that followed — elevation, seawall repair, drainage improvement, rebuilt structures — has run for years since. Fill, base and armour stone all move in volume as a result.
Vacant-lot infill
Lehigh Acres and parts of Cape Coral were platted decades ago into vast grids of individual lots, many of which are only now being built on. That produces a steady stream of single-lot new construction — each one needing fill, base and a driveway.
Getting a truck onto your Fort Myers site
Commercial sites east of I-75 are straightforward — wide roads, firm ground, room to work.
Older neighbourhoods along McGregor and near the river have narrow streets and heavy canopy. A loaded truck needs roughly 25 feet to raise a bed, and mature oaks frequently do not allow it.
Canal-front and beach properties are the tight ones. Limited frontage, soft verges, and drop points a loaded truck often cannot reach directly.
At a hundred and forty miles, give us several days of notice and we will group your order into a Lee County run.
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 Myers
Downtown Fort Myers, McGregor, Whiskey Creek, Iona, San Carlos Park, Gateway, Lehigh Acres, Fort Myers Beach, Villas, Buckingham and the Colonial Boulevard and Daniels Parkway corridors.
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 Myers — common questions
Do you deliver to Fort Myers from the east coast?
Do you serve Lehigh Acres?
Can you supply fill for elevation work?
Lee County — general questions
How long does a Lee County delivery take to arrange?
Do you supply seawall and rip rap work in Cape Coral?
Can you handle multi-load commercial orders here?
Nearby cities we also serve
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Material on site in Fort Myers when you need it, at a price that was locked before the truck left.