FREE FIELD CALCULATOR
Pad volume calculator
Get a quick yardage for a rectangular pad from its length, width and average cut or fill depth.
What you’ll need
- Pad length and width
- An average depth from several grade checks, not the deepest spot
- Whether it’s a cut or a fill
- Any extra planning allowance you want shown
Try it with these numbers
- Enter length 100, width 50 and average depth 1 foot.
- Choose Cut and enter allowance 0. Calculate: the pad is 5,000 ft² and the cut is about 185.19 bank yd³.
- Change the allowance to 10 and calculate again. Extra quantity is 18.52 yd³; the planning total is 203.7 yd³.
- Choose Fill to see the same space as a fill. That still needs material-specific ordering and compaction factors.
Reading your result
The main number is the volume from your dimensions. The allowance is shown separately so someone reading your estimate can tell measured assumptions from extra quantity.
For a cut, haul planning starts with bank volume plus the appropriate swell. For a fill, ordering starts with the space to fill and your supplier’s material factors. Neither is automatically the quantity your contract pays.
Where this goes wrong on site
- Counting topsoil as cut. Topsoil is normally stripped and stockpiled on its own before grading. An average depth measured from the top of the sod includes it in the cut.
- Forgetting subcuts. Soft or unstable soil found below subgrade is typically dug out and measured separately. It won’t show up in a surface-to-grade average depth.
- Using the deepest reading as the average across the whole pad. Take grade checks across it and average those.
- Averaging a cut on one side with a fill on the other. They cancel on paper even though both are work.
- Adding an allowance here and then adding the same allowance again in a quote.
Sources: MnDOT Inspector’s Job Guide: Grading
How the math works
Area = length × width. Volume = area × average depth ÷ 27. Extra quantity = volume × allowance ÷ 100. Planning total = volume + extra quantity.
Keep the number with the job
Calculate above, then download a Letter or A4 PDF, copy the result or share it from your phone. The result sheet keeps your inputs and assumptions. Changing an input means you need to calculate again before exporting.
Open the private field workspace for saved jobs and reports across your phone and computer, or read the free-calculator guide. Tell Jesse what would make this easier on your job.
Useful on your job?
Share this free calculator with someone who could use it, or tell Jesse what needs improving.
Shares the tool link only, without your measurements. https://driftlesssolutions.us/tools/pad-volume/