The Medway Handyman wrote:
> Phil L wrote:
>
>> I use about fifty tonnes of this every month
>
> What on earth do you do with it?

Lay block paving....I put a 150mm layer of crush and run (MOT) all over,
pack it down, then 50mm of sand, around here it's called Mersey grit (the
Mersey is dredged every day so that container ships can use the docks)
I calculate the area and divide by twenty for sand and divide by 6.6 for
MOT...EG a 120m2 job will take 6 bags of sand and 18 MOT, although most jobs
are usually around 40 - 50m2.

Recently I've been building extensions, this one is an extension to a
shop,the shop is empty and has had the suspended floor removed.
The extension floor had to be dug out to a depth of 750mm all over because
the BCO didn't like the look of the infill, which looked to me like
industrial waste (oily gravel and compacted ashes etc)
We ordered 3 X 20 tonne loads for the extension, two of which were dragged
in by the blokey with the mini digger, the third delivery went in by
wheelbarrow and spade, we had about 8 tonne left and it went into the void
in the shop floor, on top of this we ordered another 40 tonne and was about
4 tonne over, so the shop took about 44 tonnes, the extension about 52, all
in all, 100 tonnes in 2 weeks!

theres a few pics here which I had to take for the BCO:
http://i13.tinypic.com/2nqdxmr.jpg
(on this one, the MOT is already about a foot deep and the second lot is
going in)

http://i13.tinypic.com/3yotvyu.jpg
(this is about the same stage, but a different elevation)

http://i13.tinypic.com/4i79yew.jpg
(this is after it was almost filled and whacked, although we have since put
another 100mm on it)


You'll notice a yellow gas pipe in a few of them, we didn't damage this
during excavation, nor filling back in, although we put a one inch hole in
it a week later and the nice chap from Transco didn't charge us, put it down
as a 'gardeneing accident', which saved us a couple of hundred.

Phil L wrote:
> Grunff wrote:
>> Phil L wrote:
>>
>>> I know sand doesn't float, that is why the seabed is covered in
>>> it....Im not getting into one of those ridiculous pedantry
>>> competitions neither, the OP wanted to know how many m2 he'll get
>>> from a bulk bag and now he knows.
>>
>> Well, no, he doesn't, because an 850kg bag isn't a cubic metre, it's
>> around 0.6 cubic metres. This isn't a pedantic argument, this is
>> simply an argument where you are making incorrect assertions.
>
> I see.
> So the fifty or so bags that I use each month are all over sized bags, even
> though I get them from different suppliers?
> The bags are around 120cm across and deep, although they are not filled
> right to the top, they contain one cubic metre of sand,

Go and measure them exactly. They are not.

I use about 5 bags to do 50 sq meters and that was with aggregate as
well - used 5 bags of that too, and cement, all to a depth of about 4
inches. (10cm) I make that 10 ton bags of muckite to do 5 cu meters..so
about 1/2 cu meter per bag give or take.




it doesn't say
> anything about weight, whether tonnes or 885kg on any of them and they are
> manufactered to hold between 500 and 2000kgs of materials...even the small
> bags are 900 X 900 X 900,

which is 0.72 cu meter if full, and they never are.

so I think we can let it lie that it's *about* a
> cubic metre of sand?

Its nearer half a cu meter by my experience and reckoning.

- without delving further into the realms of
> pedantry? - the Op has ordered a bulk bag of sand, he has not ordered
> 855kgs, what he gets may or may not be a tonne or more, but it will be very
> close to a cubic metre.
>

He will get 850kg dry weigh, give or take, and a little over 0.5 cu
meter when properly settled down. If its sharp, it settles quite a lot
under whacking etc.

www.pavingexpert.com reckons that a cu meter of compacted sand is 1.8
tons - that's 1632.93253 kg, or just shy of two bags.

I've never known that site, written by someone who has been years in the
trade, be as wrong as you would like to make out




>

Andy Wade wrote:
> Phil L wrote:
>
>> which weighs more:
>>
>> 1) a cubic metre of dry stone
>
> Solid or chippings? The density of solid stone will typically be in the
> range 2,000 - 2,500 kg/m^3, depending on what sort of stone it is,
> obviously.
>
> OTOH 20 mm gravel or 10 mm pea shingle from a builders' merchant will
> weigh-in at more like 1,600 - 1,700 kg/m^3. By volume it's roughly 70%
> stone and 30% air.
>
>> 2) a cubic metre of dry stone, with dry sand poured into all the gaps
>
> That - ballast - will be denser since the sand fills the air gaps in the
> stone chippings.

Not as true as you think. Gravel if whacked will compact down to have a
remarkably high packing density. Over a couple of years the gravel on
mny drive has squashed doiwn to about half its laid thickness. And yes,
its on a hard syb base. Its all dwon to it getting moved by cars till it
sedges up.

Probably comparable with the sand if its sharp. Soft sand has a more
predictable, less variable packing density like all more or less
spherical stuff.

The density of sharp sand is similar to stone, so if
> you were to fill the 30% air gaps in the stone the density would
> increase by 30% to somewhere around 2200 kg/m^3. (And then, when making
> concrete you add cement to fill the gaps between the sand grains it gets
> denser still.)

Sharp sand IS stone, Sandstone to be precise. With bits of flint in -
round here anyway.


>
>> 3) a cubic metre of of sand and stone which has been outside in a
>> rainstorm for 3 weeks.
>
> Provided your heap is reasonably free-draining and doesn't get
> completely waterlogged, then whether it's wet or dry doesn't make a huge
> difference to the overall bulk density (at least not enough to worry
> about for ordinary building purposes).
>
> Oh and a cubic metre of sharp sand weighs about 1,700 kg, not 850 and
> that's a fact.

Yup. That's more or less what everyone else says too, and it fits my
experience. a bag of sand and a bag of gravel make about a cu meter of
concrete TOGETHER..with about 6x25kg bags of cement (more if you want it
stronger and less porous.

I don;t think this man here realizes how big a cubic meter is...when I
emigrated fr a few years, I got everything I owned except the furniture
in a 1.5 cu m container. Ok the loudspeakers had ornaments and books in
them;-)

Or he fact that a 20% error in estimating linear dimension is a -50%
+100% error in estimating volume..weight and volume scale really fast
with dimension..my 48" toy planes fly on 80W, but it takes a brake
horsepower to fly a 96" one. and about 100bhp to fly a 50 foot span
light plane


>

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Not as true as you think. Gravel if whacked will compact down to have a
> remarkably high packing density. Over a couple of years the gravel on
> mny drive has squashed doiwn to about half its laid thickness. And yes,
> its on a hard syb base. Its all dwon to it getting moved by cars till it
> sedges up.

True - although a compression factor of two sound a bit OTT.

> Sharp sand IS stone, Sandstone to be precise. With bits of flint in -
> round here anyway.

Also true, although apart from the difference of scale the sand will be
differently graded to include finer particles whereas the gravel (as
supplied) will probably contain a smaller proportion of fine stuff.

> Yup. That's more or less what everyone else says too, and it fits my
> experience. a bag of sand and a bag of gravel make about a cu meter of
> concrete TOGETHER..with about 6x25kg bags of cement (more if you want it
> stronger and less porous.

For good concrete you need two of gravel to one of sand - usually as
1:2:4 (cement:sand:gravel) for a strong 'slab mix' or 1:3:6 for
foundations. For a 1 tonne bag of gravel, half a tonne of sand, you'll
need more like ten bags of cement for the 1:2:4 mix or 7 bags for 1:3:6.

> Or he fact that a 20% error in estimating linear dimension is a -50%
> +100% error in estimating volume.

Indeed so (well -49%/+73% actually). A metre's only about 9% more then
a yard, but a cu. m is nearly 31% more than a cu. yard.

--
Andy

Andy Wade wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> [...] a cu meter of compacted sand is 1.8 tons - that's 1632.93253
>> kg,
>
> A pedantic point in this context but an imperial ton is approx. 1,016
> kg[*], so 1.8 tons is more like 1,830 kilos. Where you got your
> conversion factor to 9 significant figures (8 of them wrong) I do not
> know, but it ain't right!
>

Google convert function.

Just typoe in 'convert 1.8 tons to kg'

Ah, it says 'shotrt tons' whatever those are. I didn't check..ah..a
short ton is 2000lb.

Silly google.


> IOW the difference between and ton and a tonne is less then 2% and is
> seldom enough to worry about.
>

its 16kg - a ton is 1016 kg.

>[*] An avoirdupois pound is /defined/ as 0.45359237 kg, so a ton
> is 2240 * 0.45359237 = 1016.0469088 kg
>

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> Phil L wrote:
>> Grunff wrote:
>>> Phil L wrote:
>>>
>>>> I know sand doesn't float, that is why the seabed is covered in
>>>> it....Im not getting into one of those ridiculous pedantry
>>>> competitions neither, the OP wanted to know how many m2 he'll get
>>>> from a bulk bag and now he knows.
>>>
>>> Well, no, he doesn't, because an 850kg bag isn't a cubic metre, it's
>>> around 0.6 cubic metres. This isn't a pedantic argument, this is
>>> simply an argument where you are making incorrect assertions.
>>
>> I see.
>> So the fifty or so bags that I use each month are all over sized
>> bags, even though I get them from different suppliers?
>> The bags are around 120cm across and deep, although they are not
>> filled right to the top, they contain one cubic metre of sand,
>
> Go and measure them exactly. They are not.
>
http://www.bulkbag.co.uk/product_range.html
They're made up to 1220mm cubed, although most are 900mm


> I use about 5 bags to do 50 sq meters and that was with aggregate as
> well - used 5 bags of that too, and cement, all to a depth of about 4
> inches. (10cm) I make that 10 ton bags of muckite to do 5 cu
> meters..so about 1/2 cu meter per bag give or take.
>
>
>
>
> it doesn't say
>> anything about weight, whether tonnes or 885kg on any of them and
>> they are manufactered to hold between 500 and 2000kgs of
>> materials...even the small bags are 900 X 900 X 900,
>
> which is 0.72 cu meter if full, and they never are.
>
> so I think we can let it lie that it's *about* a
>> cubic metre of sand?
>
> Its nearer half a cu meter by my experience and reckoning.

You've just said even the smallest bags (90X90) contain almost 75% of a
cube!

>
> - without delving further into the realms of
>> pedantry? - the Op has ordered a bulk bag of sand, he has not ordered
>> 855kgs, what he gets may or may not be a tonne or more, but it will
>> be very close to a cubic metre.
>>
>
> He will get 850kg dry weigh, give or take, and a little over 0.5 cu
> meter when properly settled down. If its sharp, it settles quite a lot
> under whacking etc.
>
> www.pavingexpert.com reckons that a cu meter of compacted sand is 1.8
> tons - that's 1632.93253 kg, or just shy of two bags.

*compacted* is the operative word, it isn't delivered compacted, it's
delivered very loose...I've no doubt my 50mm of sand when compacted is
probably only 40mm deep, so 20m2 X 40mm would be closer to the mark of my
original reply...and laying sand by the m2 of any depth is the same, no one
mentioned how many metres they would get if it was mechanically compacted,
for working out coverage of loose sand, there's a cube in the bags I get.

>
> I've never known that site, written by someone who has been years in
> the trade, be as wrong as you would like to make out

He's wrong on quite a few things actually, but not this one, you just
misunderstand how sand is laid.
I've nothing against pavingexpert, but his is just an opinion and a fancy
website, it's not the rule of law