Paver Base Calculator for Patios, Paths and Drives
Enter your project dimensions
Stand at the string line around a marked-out patio and you are looking at the wrong rectangle. Almost every short order on a paver job starts there, because the base has to run 6 inches past every exposed paver edge to carry the edge restraint, and the number most people put into a paver base calculator is the size of the paving instead. On a modest patio that gap is close to half a ton of stone, which is the difference between finishing the base and stopping halfway through the last lift.
Six inches of stone past the last paver
Take your paved dimensions in feet, then add half a foot to every side that is not against a wall or a step. A patio 12 feet wide and 17 feet long with the house along one long side becomes 12.5 by 18, which is 225 square feet of base rather than 204 square feet of paving. That extension is not decorative. The edge restraint gets pinned into it, and a restraint spiked into lawn soil instead of compacted rock lets the outer course creep within a season.
The depth that gets dug, and the two ways it goes wrong
The second short order comes from the depth box. Enter the compacted thickness you want to finish with, not the loose spread, and remember that the hole is deeper than the base. Excavation is the base, plus the 1 inch bedding course, plus the paver thickness, less whatever you want standing proud of the surrounding grade. A 4 inch base under a standard 2 3/8 inch paver set flush with a lawn means digging about 7.5 inches.
Orders also come out long, usually by over-digging. Soil taken out has to go somewhere, and every extra inch below the mark gets bought back as stone. Mark the target on a stake, check it as you dig, and run the dirt tool backwards on the excavation if you need to know how many yards are coming out.
The third mistake is not a measuring error at all: trying to make up base depth with a thicker sand bed. Sand moves under load. Depth belongs in the stone.
The paver base calculator, the overhang and the depth box
Rectangle takes a length and a width in feet, Circle takes a diameter, which is how a round fire-pit surround or a tree-well apron goes in, and Multiple areas adds up to five pieces, so a patio, the path leading to it and a step landing can be totaled in one calculation.
Depth accepts 0.25 to 24 inches. Choose the material, leave the option that adds 10 percent for compaction and spillage ticked or untick it, and the result comes back as cubic yards, tons and cubic feet together. The email button sends the figures to you, which is worth doing because the base and the bedding sand are ordered as separate quantities and it helps to have both written down.
What 225 square feet of compacted base weighs on the ticket
Volume is area in square feet times depth in inches, divided by 12, divided by 27. Weight follows the material: Class 2 base and crusher run are published here at about 3,000 lb per cubic yard, which is 1.50 tons. Stone screenings sit a little lower at roughly 2,900 lb, or 1.45 tons, and mason sand lower again at about 2,700 lb, or 1.35 tons. Run the same patio through each and the yardage will not move while the tonnage will.
| Compacted base depth | 1 ton covers |
|---|---|
| 4 inches | about 54 sq ft |
| 6 inches | about 36 sq ft |
| 8 inches | about 27 sq ft |
Class 2 base below, screenings only as a skim
Use a compacting material with fines for the whole structural course: Class 2 Base is what most California plans and yards call it, and Crusher Run is the same family under a different ticket name at the same published weight. Decomposed Granite, the screenings product on this site, belongs in a thin leveling skim over the compacted base, not as the base itself, because on its own it holds water and shifts under load.
On expansive clay in the Coast Range valleys, the Southern California basins and the Inland Empire, put a woven geotextile under the base before any stone goes down. It keeps the stone from working its way into the subgrade through the wet months, which is the slow version of a patio going hollow. The other detail that matters more here than depth: shape the compacted base with a 2 to 3 percent fall away from the house. Winter rain arrives in a handful of big storms, and the sand and pavers will copy whatever profile the base has.
Four inches for a seating area, six over clay, eight for cars
Patios and walkways take 4 inches compacted. Drives take 6 to 8. Clay or soft subgrade adds 2 inches to whichever of those applies. Work in 2 inch lifts with a plate compactor, misting each one lightly, since slightly damp material tightens better than dry.
A 12 by 17 foot patio on clay
Base area 225 square feet at 5 inches compacted: 225 x 5 / 12 = 93.75 cubic feet, which is 93.75 / 27 = 3.47 cubic yards, or 5.21 tons at 1.50. With the 10 percent option that is 5.73 tons. Excavation at 5 inches of base, 1 inch of bedding and a 2 3/8 inch paver comes to roughly 8 3/8 inches below the finished surface.
A 20 by 10 foot apron in front of a garage
With the garage along one 20 foot side, the base area is 21 by 10.5, or 220.5 square feet. At 8 inches on soft ground: 220.5 x 8 / 12 = 147 cubic feet, which is 5.44 cubic yards and 8.17 tons, or 8.99 tons with the allowance. These two sums are illustrations, not orders anyone has placed.
Lifting an old patio and finding the base still sound
Resetting pavers is the one case where the tonnage collapses. Pull the pavers, rake off the old bedding sand and look at what is underneath. A layer that is still level, firm and draining can stay, and all you need is a fresh 1 inch bedding course, which is a fraction of what a new build takes. Where there are soft patches, low spots or standing water after a storm, take the base out with the rest. Leaving a failed layer in place puts the same fault back under new paving.
Base by the ton, bedding sand by the inch
The base is only half the order. Bedding sand is a fixed 1 inch course sized separately, and joint fill is bought by the bag, both on the paver sand tool. If what you are building is an open pad with no edge restraint rather than a paver assembly, that tool skips both the overhang and the dig stack. Once the tonnage is settled, pick an amount and a date on the product page, check what the truck needs on the day, and enter the delivery ZIP at checkout. Time the drop for after the excavation, since a stone pile standing on lawn for two weeks leaves a dead rectangle behind.
Common questions
I am digging to a stake mark. Is the base depth the dug depth or the rolled depth?
The rolled depth. The depth box wants the finished compacted thickness of the stone. The hole is deeper, because it also has to hold the 1 inch bedding course and the paver itself, less any reveal you want above grade.
The patio has a round fire-pit surround set into it. How do I add that?
Switch to Multiple areas, keep the main patio as a rectangle and enter the surround as a circle by its diameter. A 9 foot circle is 63.6 square feet, so at 4 inches it adds 21.2 cubic feet, which is 0.79 cubic yards and 1.18 tons.
Is there a quick way to sanity-check the tonnage on site?
Divide the base area by the coverage figure for your depth. At 4 inches a ton covers about 54 square feet, so 225 square feet is roughly 4 tons. If that is a long way from the tool's answer, a measurement went in wrong.
Screenings and Class 2 base gave me the same yardage but different tons. Why?
Because the yardage is the hole and the tonnage is what fills it. Class 2 base is published here at about 3,000 lb a cubic yard and screenings at about 2,900 lb, so the same 4 inch layer weighs a little less in screenings. Neither figure changes the depth you need.
Is 10 percent enough of a margin for a patio over clay?
On a flat, well-cut subgrade, yes. On clay or an uneven bottom the real requirement can drift ten to fifteen percent, so round each measurement up to the next foot as well rather than entering a deeper layer.
Related calculators
The pavers get the compliments. The base earns them.
Crusher run and screenings by the ton, free delivery, ordered together with your bedding sand.