Gravel & Rock Delivery in Homestead
Agricultural south Dade — groves, nurseries, long access roads, and the last stop before the Keys.
Homestead is fifty-five miles from the yard and orders more like rural Florida than like Miami. The area around it — the Redland, Florida City, the agricultural belt running west toward the Everglades — is nurseries, groves, packing houses and large parcels with long unpaved access.
The material mix looks much more like Davie than like Doral: shell rock, millings and fill rather than spec base.
Building in Homestead
The Redland is one of the largest concentrations of ornamental plant nurseries in the country, and nurseries run on unpaved roads. Delivery lanes between growing blocks, loading areas, and access for trucks that come in loaded and leave heavier. Those surfaces need constant maintenance, and the economical answer is shell rock or millings rather than paving.
Grove and farm access is the same problem at a larger scale. Miles of internal roads on some properties, all of it unpaved, all of it degrading under equipment traffic and rain.
Drainage matters differently here than on the coast. The land is flat and low, agricultural operations need water off their growing areas quickly, and grade work with fill combined with drainage rock is common.
Homestead and Florida City themselves are conventional small-city markets — residential driveways, commercial pavement, municipal work — buying the same base and fill as anywhere else.
Homestead-Miami Speedway and the surrounding parcels add periodic large-volume work, and the area is also the staging point for our Keys runs, since it is the last mainland town before US-1 crosses into Monroe County.
Materials we deliver to Homestead
We carry 19 materials and will haul any of them here. These are the six Homestead orders most, with the specification detail you need to order correctly the first time.
Shell Rock in Homestead
The cheaper compactable base. Not spec material, and honest about it — but for a driveway or a pad it does the job for less.
Shell rock is a blended shell and limestone product with enough natural fines to bind when it is watered and rolled. Compact it properly and you get a firm, light-coloured surface that sheds water and carries vehicle traffic perfectly well.
What it is not is specification base. The bearing value is lower than limerock base and it varies more between sources. If an engineer has written LBR 100 on your drawing, shell rock does not satisfy it and an inspector will say so.
Within those limits it is genuinely useful and noticeably cheaper. A very large share of the driveways, equipment pads and grove roads in west Broward, the Redland and rural Palm Beach County are built on it, and they hold up fine because nothing on them requires certified bearing capacity.
Full Shell Rock specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Blended crushed shell and limestone with natural fines |
| Bearing value | Lower than limerock base; varies by source — not a substitute for LBR 100 |
| Gradation | Well-graded with fines that bind on compaction |
| Colour | Light buff to near-white — visually distinct from grey limerock |
| Approx. weight | 1.5 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 4" | ~50 sq ft per ton compacted |
What Homestead customers use it for
- Residential driveways and parking pads
- Ranch, grove and equestrian access roads
- Trailer, container and equipment pads
- Non-structural fill and grade correction
- Temporary construction access
- Walking paths and back-of-house yard areas
Is shell rock as good as limerock?
For a driveway or a pad, functionally yes and for less money. For specified base course under pavement, no — the bearing value is lower and it will not satisfy an LBR 100 specification.
Asphalt Millings in Homestead
Milled asphalt, delivered loose. Rolled in summer heat it knits back into a dark, firm surface for a fraction of the price of paving.
When a road is resurfaced, the top layer is ground off by a milling machine. That ground-up material — reclaimed asphalt pavement, RAP, or just millings — still contains the asphalt binder that held the original pavement together.
Spread it, compact it, and let South Florida do the rest. Sitting in direct sun at ninety-plus degrees, the residual binder softens and the particles knit together into a firm, dark surface that sheds water and holds up to regular vehicle traffic. It is not asphalt paving and it will never be as smooth or as durable, but it costs a small fraction of what paving costs and it dramatically outperforms loose rock on a driveway.
Timing matters more than with any other material we sell. Millings placed in June and rolled will set up hard within days. The same load placed in January on a cool, damp week takes far longer to bind and may need re-rolling. If you have a choice, do it in summer.
Full Asphalt Millings specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Reclaimed asphalt pavement, milled from resurfacing projects |
| Gradation | Variable by source — generally 1/2" minus with fines |
| Binder | Residual asphalt cement; reactivates in heat |
| Colour | Dark grey to black; weathers lighter |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard compacted |
| Coverage at 3" | ~72 sq ft per ton compacted |
| Coverage at 4" | ~54 sq ft per ton compacted |
What Homestead customers use it for
- Residential and agricultural driveways
- Overflow and employee parking areas
- Ranch, grove and nursery access roads
- Temporary haul roads and construction access
- Trailer and equipment pads
- Dust control on unpaved yards
How long do asphalt millings take to harden?
In summer heat, days. In cooler or wetter weather it can take weeks and may need re-rolling. Sun exposure is the main driver — a shaded driveway never binds as firmly as one in full sun.
Limerock Base in Homestead
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 Homestead 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 Dirt in Homestead
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 Homestead 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.
Topsoil in Homestead
Screened growing soil by the load. The layer that decides whether new sod takes or dies in six weeks.
Much of South Florida sits on sand and limestone with very little native topsoil. Strip a lot for construction and what you are left with is not a growing medium — it is fill. Sod laid straight onto it will green up for a few weeks on the strength of what came with the pallet and then decline.
Screened topsoil is the layer that fixes that. It holds moisture and nutrients long enough for roots to establish, and in a climate where the rain arrives in violent bursts and then does not come back for two weeks, moisture retention is the whole game.
The practical minimum for sod is 2 inches; 4 is better. Planting beds want 6 to 12 depending on what is going in them.
Full Topsoil specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Material | Screened soil with organic content suitable for planting |
| Screening | Passed to remove rock, roots and debris |
| Approx. weight | 1.15 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 2" | ~130 sq ft per ton |
| Coverage at 4" | ~65 sq ft per ton |
| Coverage at 6" | ~43 sq ft per ton |
What Homestead customers use it for
- Sod preparation and lawn establishment
- Filling and levelling planting beds
- Lawn repair and low-spot correction
- Raised beds and vegetable gardens
- Topdressing over fill before landscaping
- Tree and shrub planting backfill
How much topsoil do I need for new sod?
Two inches minimum, four is better. One ton covers roughly 130 square feet at 2 inches, so a 2,000 square foot lawn needs about 15 tons at that depth.
#57 Rock in Homestead
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 Homestead 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".
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 Miami-Dade County
Miami-Dade sits on Miami oolite, and that single geological fact explains a surprising amount about how construction works here.
Miami oolite
Oolite is a young, porous limestone formed from small spherical grains cemented together. It is softer and considerably more permeable than the older Ocala limestone found further north, and it is quarried extensively in the northwest of the county — which is why base rock is cheap in Dade and why the aggregate industry clustered around Medley.
Its permeability is the reason so much of the county drains into wells rather than into surface systems, and the reason #57 rock and other open-graded stone appear so consistently in drainage details.
Thin soil, hard rock
Across much of the county the soil cap is shallow and rock is close beneath it. Excavation frequently means breaking rock rather than digging soil, which changes the economics of any job involving depth — pools, foundations, deep utilities. It also means the subgrade you are building on is often genuinely competent, which is one of the few things that makes construction here easier than elsewhere.
Why recycled material makes sense here
Miami-Dade demolishes and rebuilds at a rate no other Florida county matches, and the processing capacity grew to match the feedstock. The result is that crushed concrete is abundant, consistent and inexpensive here in a way it simply is not in most markets.
On private work it is the default base across a very large share of jobs, and it performs at or near limerock base while continuing to gain strength as residual cement rehydrates. The only real question is acceptance: check your specification before building on it.
Getting a truck onto your Homestead site
Rural access, with rural problems. Long unpaved drives, soft ground after rain, and overhead vegetation are the three recurring issues.
On nursery and grove properties, the internal roads are frequently softer than they look, particularly in the wet season. If we cannot safely get to the back of a property we will drop at the firmest accessible point and you move it from there — far better than a truck buried a quarter mile down a lane.
Distance means scheduling. Fifty-five miles each way makes Homestead a planned run rather than a same-day squeeze, and we group deliveries into the area where we can. Give us a day or two of notice and we will fit you into a run.
If your job is actually in the Keys, Homestead is where the material passes through — see our Florida Keys page for how that corridor works.
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 Homestead
Homestead, Florida City, the Redland, Naranja, Leisure City, Princeton, Goulds border, the Krome Avenue corridor, the US-1 corridor and the agricultural areas west toward Everglades National Park.
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.
Homestead — common questions
Do you deliver to nurseries and groves in the Redland?
How much notice do you need for Homestead?
Do you go past Homestead into the Keys?
Miami-Dade County — general questions
How fast can you deliver in Miami-Dade?
Is crushed concrete accepted for base in Miami-Dade?
Do you deliver to Medley and the industrial corridor?
Can you handle large commercial programmes in Dade?
Nearby cities we also serve
Stop Babysitting Your
Material Suppliers. Call Us.
Material on site in Homestead when you need it, at a price that was locked before the truck left.