Ordering materials by volume

[Spudland_Dave]

Weight of quarry products doesn't vary that much with moisture. When the product is in the pile it takes on vary little moisture, rain tends to run off and it dries vary little in the pile.

Very true...In my dealings typically the "moisture sensitive" items like Mulch, Loam, etc.. are sold by the yard, even Bank Run Gravel is more often then not by the yard (although it depends on who you get it from, i've seen bank run both ways). Pretty much anything that goes thru a screen is by the ton.

Weight is a legal measure volume is not.

I dunno about that, pretty sure the only caveat is that it is what you say it is....as long as you give what your saying it is, you're good. Arent industrial gases are sold by volume (cubic feet)??

 

[wvpolekat]

Milk is sold by volume, as are most other liquids. Any measurement is a "legal" one as long as it is defined. It can be gallons or kilderkins. As long as everyone knows how much volume that is and agrees.

 

[Duffster]

Milk is sold by volume, as are most other liquids. Any measurement is a "legal" one as long as it is defined. It can be gallons or kilderkins. As long as everyone knows how much volume that is and agrees.

And I bet that volume is found by weight.

Milk on the farm is sold by weight figured from volume. :laughing:

 

[tlbuser]

Perhaps someone can explain this to me, since it has happened many, many times, and I cannot figure out why. I sometimes need to order various materials such as sand, screenings, mulch, wood chips, 2a stone, etc. Some of these things are often sold by volume where as others are sold by weight. My issue is with things that are sold by weight. For instances:

I have a 100' x 1' trench that I need to put 6" of screenings in, so about 2 cubic yards. I call the place and I ask, "what is the volume of one ton of screenings?" The answer isn't, "Oh, one ton's about .85 cubic yards." The answer is, "Uh, um, I don't know..."

I have a 10' x 10' pad that I'm building for a gazebo, and I need to put down 1" of sand below the pavers, or 8-9 cubic feet. But again, sand is sold by weight. As a consumer, I know the volume. I don't care what it weighs.

I understand why the places that sell it care about the weight, but for the consumer interface, things should be converted to the units the consumer would use.

Yes, I can look up tons/yard^3 for materials and get the answers myself, but just going to the Internet for this yields 20 different answers.

This is more of just a rant, but again, not in how things are sold, but more that when I ask, "What is the volume of one ton of screenings," the response I get gives me the impression that I'm the first person to have ever asked the question.

Sand runs ~ 2200 -2500 lbs/cu.yd.
gravel runs ~ 2600-3200 lbs/cu.yd.
both dependent on type and size. (3/4 minus is ~ 2800)

It's easy to overload a truck by volume, not so easy by the scales. Who wants to be the owner who gets the overweight tickets? The pits are scaled towards the more frequent users, i.e. construction trades.

Concrete is always by the yard. A typical tandem/tri-axle runs 9 yards without getting into weight issues.

Mulch, leafgro, etc. is geared more towards the homeowner. Cubic yardage is easy to estimate based on bucket size. Who counts how many scoops the person at the nursery is loading? How many people can tell at glance the yardage per bucket?

Last time I went to get mulch, I paid for 4 yards. The loader operator put in 2 scoops, I asked for the rest of my load. He said, nope, this machine has a 2 yard bucket (John Deere 310). When I got done laughing, I again asked for the other 2.

 

[JDGreenGrass]

Sand runs ~ 2200 -2500 lbs/cu.yd.
gravel runs ~ 2600-3200 lbs/cu.yd.
both dependent on type and size. (3/4 minus is ~ 2800)

It's easy to overload a truck by volume, not so easy by the scales. Who wants to be the owner who gets the overweight tickets? The pits are scaled towards the more frequent users, i.e. construction trades.

Concrete is always by the yard. A typical tandem/tri-axle runs 9 yards without getting into weight issues.

Mulch, leafgro, etc. is geared more towards the homeowner. Cubic yardage is easy to estimate based on bucket size. Who counts how many scoops the person at the nursery is loading? How many people can tell at glance the yardage per bucket?

Last time I went to get mulch, I paid for 4 yards. The loader operator put in 2 scoops, I asked for the rest of my load. He said, nope, this machine has a 2 yard bucket (John Deere 310). When I got done laughing, I again asked for the other 2.

Well, did you get your other 2 yards.??

 

[tlbuser]

Yes, after a little heated debate and having to wait for the owner to show up.

 

[tlbuser]

The pits are scaled towards the more frequent users, i.e. construction trades.

I should clarify this. At least on our jobs, we use "standards for conversion". One ton of building sand is 0.75 yards. One ton of gravel is 0.75 yards.

Unfortunately, most companies worry about their large volume customers and could give two hoots about their little ones. Customer service appears to be getting farther away from larger companies, profits first - perks second- shareholders third - everything else will just take care of itself People wonder why, but they seem to be the same ones asking why the self service cash registers aren't working properly.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I had 4 yds of compost delivered this spring, the pile seemed a lot smaller than the 4 yds of mulch I just got this week.
also notice when you get mulch, they will "fluff" it first, then load you.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Some places definitely try to confuse the customer by selling by weight rather than volume. I recently priced some stone from a different supplier just to see if my regular guy was being fair (he sells by the cubic yard) and the new guy quoted by the ton which sounded better till I looked up the weights on the internet. My regular guy was selling crushed slate for $125 per yard and the other guys price which sounded cheap actually came to almost $400 per yard and they both got the rock from the same quarry. THe rock comes out very wet so by the ton would have also meant that I likely wouldnt have received anywhere near the volume per ton as quoted on the net. Places that sell by the ton will frequently water their stock pile to add weight also.

 

[Duffster]

Some places definitely try to confuse the customer by selling by weight rather than volume. I recently priced some stone from a different supplier just to see if my regular guy was being fair (he sells by the cubic yard) and the new guy quoted by the ton which sounded better till I looked up the weights on the internet. My regular guy was selling crushed slate for $125 per yard and the other guys price which sounded cheap actually came to almost $400 per yard and they both got the rock from the same quarry. THe rock comes out very wet so by the ton would have also meant that I likely wouldnt have received anywhere near the volume per ton as quoted on the net. Places that sell by the ton will frequently water their stock pile to add weight also.

So the place that sounded cheap was ~$260/ton?