Paver Base Calculator

Four inches of compacted crushed stone for a foot-traffic path, 6 inches for a patio, and 8 to 12 inches for a driveway. Add depth for clay soils or hard-freeze climates. Then allow 1 inch of bedding sand and the paver thickness on top when you set your excavation depth.

Crusher run or 3/4 inch minus crushed stone — angular material that includes fines. It compacts to a firm, load-spreading layer. Never use clean gravel, pea gravel or sand as the structural base; sand belongs only in the thin bedding layer.

Both, and they do different jobs. Compacted crushed stone carries the load. A 1 inch layer of coarse bedding sand lets you set each paver level. Skipping the sand makes levelling nearly impossible; skipping the stone means the patio sinks.

Measure the length and width in feet at the widest points and multiply them. For an irregular bed, break it into rectangles, circles and triangles, calculate each one separately and add the results together. Rounding up slightly is safer than rounding down.

Bulk is almost always cheaper per cubic yard once you need more than about 1 cubic yard — roughly 14 bags. Bags win when you need a small amount, have nowhere to dump a pile, or want to spread the job over several weekends.

A half-ton pickup can usually carry about 1 cubic yard of light material like mulch, but only around half a cubic yard of wet soil or gravel because of the weight. Check the weight figure above against your vehicle's payload rating before you load up.