Top Soil

My son is doing up his garden. He's put up fencing, a shed and made a patio. He is now ready to start on the garden. He wants to put some top soil down but doesn't know how much to get and neither do I.
The area for the top soil is 12 metres x 4 metres and he wants to raise the level no more 4-6 inches.
Anyone good at quantity surveying?

 

Before I give you my twopenn'oth, you need to understand that as a pre-decimal child, I can't 'do' metric (even though topsoil is sold by the cubic metre) - so I've had to work it out in imperial first.

Anyway, it goes like this .... based on the fact that a cubic yard will give a covering 3" deep over an area of 100 sq. ft.

12 metres is 39.37 feet (call it 40') and 4 metres is 13.12 feet (so rounding that up) we'll say 14'. If he wants a depth of 4" - 6", he will, by my reckoning, need 11.2 cubic metres.

Simples :wink:

 

Doing it all in metric i make that 7.2 cubic metres

 

How did you get 7.3 from an equasion of .150x12x4 JWK ?

Where did you get that extra 0.10 ?

:cnfs:

 

Now don't be falling out about it:lollol:

Fidgetsmum I am a pre decimal child too. I was a bit shocked at the cubic metres. I was thinking in tons:D

Thank you all. I'll pass it on to No. 1 son.

 

:lollol:Wouldn't fall out over 0.10
Just checking the maths

Hope thats been of help. Substitute top soil for spent mushroom compost & it could be an interesting autumn

 

It all depends where he gets it from. I had 1 ton from a farmer. I asked him how he weighed it - and he just said 1 ton is one scoop of the bucket on the tractor! I suspect that him putting scoops into a trailor would be cheaper than 1 tonne bags.

 

You and your calculator :lollol:At least i know where to come for our next Q.S.:D

 

That's the sort of measurements I'm used to.:hehe: I told my son to avoid bags if possible because of the price. He can put a tarp. outside the house on the road and use the wheelbarrow.
I do recall getting top soil to fill in a raised bed. The lorry came and dumped a load in my drive and I spent a day barrowing. It was supposed to be 7 tons but trust me there was a hell of a lot more than 7 builders bags there. Maybe his digger bucket was extra large :lollol:

 

We are in the process of turning our rectangular lawn into two circles so are making some extra bits of border and so far have dug out two small skips worth and now on our third and that is without the 11 trips to the tip before we were asked by the builders next door if we would like a skip.We have already had two of those 1 tonne bags and believe me they don't go far even when mixed with compost and leaf mould and still need some more for the parts still to fill:D

 

Talking of using a 'barrer'. When Mr. F'smum ordered 3 cubic metres of pea shingle to make my paths and to use as deck foundations, it didn't sound too bad - after all my Dad had had loads of things delivered in cubic yard bags which I'd helped barrow 'round the back'. Ah! the innocence of youth, a cubic metre turned out to be a helluva lot bigger than a cubic yard, each successive barrow load got smaller and smaller because of aching muscles and the barrow broke! Not only that, but I'd swear those tonnes of gravel weighed considerably more than the tonne of topsoil we'd previously had delivered!

 

FidgetsMum I had a similar experience. I had ordered pink stones for our front drive. They were delivered when I was out. I turned into the drive and nearly crashed into a mountain :hehe: Hubby never seems to be there when these things happen. :skp: I had to start with barrow and rake so we could get into our drive. I remember those aching muscles too well