- 1). Look over the area that you want the dirt to cover and picture the surface as a combination of simple shapes like rectangles, right triangles or circles. For example, you can picture an L-shaped yard made up of two rectangles. A yard with one angled side might be a rectangle with a right triangle on one end.
- 2). Take measurements of each shape with a tape measure and multiply using one of the following formulas to estimate the surface area of each shape. Measure in feet and round to the closest foot. For a rectangle or square, measure the length and width and multiply them together. For a right triangle, measure the two sides that are at right angles to each other, multiply them together and divide by two. For a circle, measure the diameter, divide it by two, multiply that number by itself and then multiply it by 3.14.
- 3). If the surface is a combination of two or more shapes, calculate their surface areas separately and add them together to get the total surface area.
- 4). Measure the depth of the area you want to fill with dirt, expressed in feet to one or two decimal places. For small depths, you can measure in inches and divide by 12. For example, 3 inches of topsoil would be three divided by 12 or .25 feet. A 30-inch ditch would be 30 divided by 12 or 2.5 feet.
- 5). Multiply the total surface area by the depth. This gives the amount of dirt in cubic feet. Convert the total to cubic yards by dividing by 27.
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