Quick Verdict
To figure how many truckloads your Oregon project needs, take your volume in cubic yards and divide by the truck's capacity, then adjust for swell and shrink. Dug-out soil swells, meaning loose dirt takes up more space than it did in the ground, so export loads count higher than your in-ground number. Fill compacts, so you import a bit more than the finished volume. Remember that a project moving dirt out and bringing rock in doubles the trips. Distance to the pit or dump and rural delivery minimums drive the haul cost. This page walks the math step by step.
Step 1: Get Your Yardage
Everything starts with cubic yards. You cannot count loads until you know the volume of dirt you are removing or the material you are bringing in. For a simple rectangular dig, multiply length by width by depth in feet, then divide by 27 to convert cubic feet to cubic yards. Odd shapes get broken into chunks and added up.
Getting the volume right is its own skill, covered in how to estimate material quantity and in the excavation materials and hauling guide. Once you have a solid yardage, the load count follows.
Step 2: Pick a Truck Size
Truck capacity sets your divisor. A tandem dump truck typically carries about 10 to 14 loose cubic yards, smaller trucks and trailers carry less, and transfer combos carry more. But remember that heavy Oregon material often maxes out the truck by weight before the bed is full, so the real per-load yardage can be lower. The full breakdown is in dump truck load sizes and cubic yards.
| Truck Type | Loose Capacity | Loads per 100 cu yd |
|---|---|---|
| Tandem dump truck | 10 - 14 cu yd | About 7 - 10 |
| Single-axle dump truck | 5 - 8 cu yd | About 13 - 20 |
| Dump trailer | 2 - 5 cu yd | About 20 - 50 |
Step 3: Apply the Swell or Shrink Factor
This is the step people skip, and it throws off the count. Soil does not keep the same volume when you move it.
- Swell on dig-out: when you excavate, the soil loosens and takes up more space than it did packed in the ground. A cubic yard of in-ground clay can become noticeably more than a cubic yard loose in the truck, so you haul out more loose yards than your in-ground number suggests.
- Shrink on fill: when you compact imported fill, it packs down, so you have to bring in more loose material than the finished compacted volume.
A practical rule is to add a swell allowance to export volumes and a shrink allowance to import volumes. The exact factor depends on the material, but ignoring it leaves you a few loads short.
Step 4: Count Loads In and Out
Now total the trips. Export loads are your dig-out volume plus swell, divided by truck capacity. Import loads are your fill volume plus shrink allowance, divided by truck capacity. The crucial point: if your project both removes spoil and brings in fill or rock, those are separate trip counts that add together. A site that hauls 60 yards of clay out and brings 40 yards of rock in is moving two sets of loads, not one.
| Trip Type | Volume Basis | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Export (haul-off) | Dig-out yardage plus swell | More loose yards than in-ground |
| Import (fill/rock) | Finished fill plus shrink allowance | More loose material than compacted |
| Round trips | Export plus import | They add together |
Oregon Realities That Change the Count
Several Oregon factors push the load count and cost up.
- Import and export double the trips. A cut-and-fill site that does not balance on its own pays for both directions.
- Distance to the pit or dump. Rural Oregon sites can be far from a rock pit or transfer station, and each load carries that travel time.
- Rural delivery minimums. A small delivery to a remote site often carries a minimum charge even for a partial load.
- Heavy wet material. Saturated clay weighs more, maxing trucks out by weight and lowering yards per load, raising the count.
The Oregon excavation contractor guide covers how access and distance shape hauling.
A Sample Project Total
Say a project digs out 80 cubic yards of clay and imports 50 cubic yards of compacted gravel. Add swell to the export, call it roughly 95 loose yards out, which is about 7 to 9 tandem loads. Add shrink allowance to the import, call it roughly 58 loose yards in, about 4 to 6 tandem loads. Total trips: somewhere around 11 to 15 loads moving in and out. Then apply haul cost per load.
| Item | Industry Baseline Range |
|---|---|
| Dump truck haul, per load (10 - 14 cu yd) | $250 - $750+ per load |
| Crushed gravel, delivered, per cu yd | $45 - $110+ per cu yd |
| Disposal or dump fee, per load | $75 - $300+ per load |
Current Market Reality
Real costs often run 2 to 3 times baseline when the pit or dump is far, the material is heavy and wet, both import and export are needed, or rural minimums apply to partial loads. The honest load count comes from your real yardage plus swell, shrink, and access, not a quick guess.
The Bottom Line
Count truckloads by getting your yardage, picking a truck size, applying swell on the way out and shrink on the way in, and adding import and export trips together. Then apply haul cost per load. Cojo is CCB Licensed and Insured and hauls across Oregon. Start with the excavation materials and hauling guide, see our excavation services, or request a free estimate.