How much Topsoil will i need

Skillie

No idea about landscaping etc here so bare with me.

I have built a house in the wilderness of cork its on a 1.9 acre site and its 3000 square feet with driveway etc so i guess i've chewed up half an acre of the site. the soil there is rocky and clayish.

When the time comes to make a garden of it can anyone tell me how many tonnes of topsoil it will take? what dept of soil will i need for successful seeding i.e. at 150mm of soil you'll need 200 tonnes etc?

WIZE

I asked the same question in a Garden center on saturday as I bought sods of rolled grass. €3.30 a square yard in B&Q. I asked how much top soil I would need and was told by 3 people to have 1/2 a foot of top soil under it .

hope it helps

Orion

1 tonne is ~1 cubic yard as I found out recently when I bought 2 tonnes but only needed 1 :

Minder

What size is your house and drive? 300 sq ft?

Depending on the moisture content, loose topsoil weighs 1.2 to 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre. So area (m2) x thickness (m) x 1.2t/m3 is the amount you need.

You reckon on 1.5 acres, that's 6069 m2 x 0.15 (6 inches) x 1.2t/m3 is 1092tonnes. 110 lorry loads. Since you won't be spreading that with a shovel, it will get compacted in working, so if you want 6 inches of finished topsoil, use a higher conversion rate, say 1.5 or 1.6. Say about 1450t.

Skillie

Minder wrote: »

What size is your house and drive? 300 sq ft?

Depending on the moisture content, loose topsoil weighs 1.2 to 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre. So area (m2) x thickness (m) x 1.2t/m3 is the amount you need.

You reckon on 1.5 acres, that's 6069 m2 x 0.15 (6 inches) x 1.2t/m3 is 1092tonnes. 110 lorry loads. Since you won't be spreading that with a shovel, it will get compacted in working, so if you want 6 inches of finished topsoil, use a higher conversion rate, say 1.5 or 1.6. Say about 1450t.

holy moly thats a lot of soil!!! thanks for that and sorry for the typo the house is 3000 sq ft and has a ground floor area of about 1700 sq ft, the drive is fairly large etc so i reckon i've chewed up about half an acre with house and driveway etc. 110 lorry loads aat a few hundred quid a load is gonna be expensive!

thanks again

Minder

Minder wrote: »

What size is your house and drive? 300 sq ft?

Depending on the moisture content, loose topsoil weighs 1.2 to 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre. So area (m2) x thickness (m) x 1.2t/m3 is the amount you need.

You reckon on 1.5 acres, that's 6069 m2 x 0.15 (6 inches) x 1.2t/m3 is 1092tonnes. 110 lorry loads. Since you won't be spreading that with a shovel, it will get compacted in working, so if you want 6 inches of finished topsoil, use a higher conversion rate, say 1.5 or 1.6. Say about 1450t.

Hmmm, I'm not sure on the number of loads, typically a tipper holds 9 m3 and has a safe working load of 20 tonne. With topsoil, the size of the tipper dictates the load rather than the safe working load - in other words, you can't get 20 tonne of topsoil in a 9m3 tipper. You get anywhere between 10.5 tonne and 14.5 tonne.

With that quantity, I would be looking for a weighbridge ticket with every load.

But you wouldn't need to put 6 inches of topsoil across the whole site. If it's mostly clay, you will need to assess the drainage before adding material. You may also be able to get the existing material removed and screened to take out the rocks.

Skillie

Minder wrote: »

Hmmm, I'm not sure on the number of loads, typically a tipper holds 9 m3 and has a safe working load of 20 tonne. With topsoil, the size of the tipper dictates the load rather than the safe working load - in other words, you can't get 20 tonne of topsoil in a 9m3 tipper. You get anywhere between 10.5 tonne and 14.5 tonne.

With that quantity, I would be looking for a weighbridge ticket with every load.

But you wouldn't need to put 6 inches of topsoil across the whole site. If it's mostly clay, you will need to assess the drainage before adding material. You may also be able to get the existing material removed and screened to take out the rocks.

thank you i will be contacting a local proffessional in time anyway to look at my options but was looking to just get rough ideas. some drainage work is needed as it is quite a wet site etc. cheers for the advice