Gravel & Rock Delivery in Miami
Dense, vertical and constrained. Delivery here is as much about scheduling as it is about material.
Miami proper is thirty miles from our yard and the most operationally demanding city we deliver into. The construction is dense, frequently vertical, and almost always on a site with no room to store anything.
The material list is conventional — crushed concrete, limerock base, #57, sand and fill. What is different is that the delivery has to land in a specific window, in a specific spot, and get out again.
Building in Miami
Downtown, Brickell and Edgewater are high-rise territory. Material going into those sites arrives against a schedule the general contractor controls, often through a single gate, sometimes with a lane closure permit that expires. There is nowhere to leave a pile. These deliveries succeed or fail on communication rather than on trucks.
Wynwood, Little Havana, Allapattah and Little Haiti are the infill and renovation belt — smaller lots, older buildings, driveways and slabs being replaced, and a steady demand for single and double loads of base and fill on sites where a truck barely fits.
Coconut Grove and the Coral Way corridor bring residential hardscape and landscape work: paver driveways, pool decks, planting. That is base and bedding sand on one truck, with tree canopy that genuinely restricts where a bed can be raised.
The Miami River corridor is its own world — marine, industrial, working waterfront — and generates rip rap, seawall and bulkhead work alongside conventional industrial base.
Across all of it, the porous Miami oolite underneath means drainage details are ubiquitous and #57 rock moves constantly.
Materials we deliver to Miami
We carry 21 materials and will haul any of them here. These are the six Miami orders most, with the specification detail you need to order correctly the first time.
Crushed Concrete in Miami
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 Miami 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.
Limerock Base in Miami
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 Miami 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.
#57 Rock in Miami
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 Miami 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".
Fill Sand in Miami
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 Miami 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.
Concrete Sand in Miami
Coarse, washed and well graded. The sand that goes in concrete — and the only sand that belongs under pavers.
Concrete sand is washed and graded across a range of particle sizes rather than screened to a single fine size. That range is the whole reason it works structurally: the different sizes wedge against one another and the layer stiffens under load instead of flowing.
Put a load on mason sand and the uniform particles roll past each other and the layer deforms. Put the same load on concrete sand and it locks. That is why concrete sand is the fine aggregate in concrete and the correct bedding for pavers, and mason sand is neither.
Most suppliers here grade it to ASTM C33, which is the standard fine-aggregate specification for concrete. If your mix design or paver specification names C33, this is the product.
Full Concrete Sand specification, coverage figures and FAQ →
Specification
| Specification | Commonly supplied to ASTM C33 fine aggregate grading |
| Material | Washed silica sand |
| Gradation | Well graded from coarse to fine — particles interlock under load |
| Washed | Yes |
| Approx. weight | 1.4 tons per cubic yard |
| Coverage at 1" | ~215 sq ft per ton |
| Paver bedding depth | 1 inch screeded — not more |
What Miami customers use it for
- Fine aggregate in ready-mix and site-mixed concrete
- Bedding course under conventional interlocking pavers
- Mortar and grout mixes where a coarser sand is specified
- Pipe bedding and backfill
- Levelling course beneath flagstone and slabs
Is concrete sand the same as C33 sand?
In practice yes — ASTM C33 is the fine aggregate grading specification most concrete sand in this market is produced to. If your spec names C33, concrete sand is what you are ordering.
Rip Rap in Miami
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 Miami 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.
Bulk and commercial work in Miami
Miami covers the widest range of large work we see — port and marine, downtown and Brickell towers, and the redevelopment pushing through Allapattah, Wynwood and Little River.
Tower and infill sites buy #57 rock for drainage and blinding, concrete sand, and base for access and laydown. Marine and shoreline work around the port and the river buys rip rap and scour protection.
On a downtown site the binding constraint is almost never tonnage — it is laydown area and the delivery window the city or the building allows. We stage smaller loads more frequently where a site cannot hold a pile, which costs more in freight and less in standing time. Tell us what the site can actually hold and we will plan to it.
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 Miami site
Plan the delivery window before you order the material. In practice that is the single most useful thing you can do on a Miami job.
Early morning is dramatically better than any other time. Traffic on I-95 and the surface streets makes an afternoon delivery unpredictable in a way that no amount of dispatching fixes.
For downtown and Brickell sites, give us the gate, the contact, the window, and any lane closure detail. For neighbourhood infill, tell us the street width and whether there is anywhere at all to put the material.
Overhead clearance is a real constraint in the older neighbourhoods and in the Grove — a tri-axle needs around 25 feet to raise its bed, and mature canopy frequently does not allow it. If it does not, we need to know so we can send a truck that can walk the load off instead.
Before you order
Four things worth reading once if this is your first load into Miami. Each opens the full guide.
Areas we cover in Miami
Downtown, Brickell, Edgewater, Wynwood, Little Havana, Coconut Grove, Coral Way, Allapattah, Overtown, Little Haiti, Upper Eastside, the Miami River corridor and the Biscayne Boulevard corridor.
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.
Miami — common questions
Can you deliver to a downtown Miami high-rise site?
What time of day is best for a Miami delivery?
Do you deliver base for Coconut Grove paver work?
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
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