Wood Chips Calculator
Estimate cubic yards and weight of wood chips for paths, play areas and around trees.
What you need
2.04cu yd
Wood Chips needed — Order this much loose material, including your waste allowance.
- Same amount in cubic feet
- 55.0 cu ft
- Approximate weight
- 0.61 US tons
- Area you are covering
- 200.0 sq ft
- Bags needed
- 28
Useful for checking trailer, truck or wheelbarrow limits.
Rounded up — you can only buy whole bags.
Estimates for planning. Confirm quantities with your supplier before ordering — see the assumptions below for the figures used.
How to use the wood chips calculator
Wood chips are the cheapest bulk cover going — often free from a local tree service — and are ideal for paths and tree rings. They are also very light, so a cubic yard goes further per pound than any other bulk material here.
What this calculator assumes
Every estimate depends on figures that vary by supplier and conditions. These are the ones used here, so you can sanity-check the result against your own quote.
- Bulk density is assumed to be about 600 lb per cubic yard. Loose material varies with moisture and how finely it is ground, so treat the weight as an estimate.
- One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. Suppliers almost always sell loose material by the cubic yard.
- Results include whatever waste allowance you entered. Bag counts are rounded up.
- Fresh arborist chips are light, around 500 to 700 lb per cubic yard. A full chip truck typically holds 10 to 16 cubic yards.
- Chips are not graded play surfacing. Use certified engineered wood fibre under play equipment.
Frequently asked questions
How many cubic yards is a truckload of wood chips?
A typical tree-service chip truck carries 10 to 16 cubic yards. Many companies will drop a load free rather than pay tipping fees — but you take what they have, when they have it, and you cannot choose the species or grind.
Do wood chips steal nitrogen from plants?
Only at the thin contact layer where chips meet soil. As a surface mulch they are fine around established plants. Do not till fresh chips into a bed you are about to plant — that is where nitrogen tie-up genuinely causes problems.
How deep should a wood chip path be?
Four to six inches, laid over landscape fabric or cardboard. It will compress to roughly two-thirds of that within a season, so plan to top up annually.
How do I measure my area for wood chips?
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.
Should I order bulk or bags?
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.
Will a cubic yard fit in my pickup truck?
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.
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