#67 Stone for Florida Sand and Wet Ground

Dig anywhere on the peninsula and the hole fills with quartz sand that pours off the shovel, drains in minutes and gives back almost nothing under a load. That ground is the reason the middle gradings of crushed stone get ordered here as often as they do. #67 Stone is graded 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch, angular crushed rock with no fines in the mix, and in Florida it is normally crushed limestone. The absence of fines is the whole character of it: the gaps between pieces stay open, water uses them, and nothing in the load binds the way a base material does.

Which jobs is #67 stone the right size for?

Four, mostly. Bedding and backfill around a pipe run, where the even gradation supports the pipe all the way along instead of bridging over a hollow. Infiltration trenches and French drain fill, where the smaller grading is less prone to being bridged by sand than a bigger open stone. A tidy crushed ground cover around trees and along bed edges, where the even sizing stops it reading as a mixed pit run. And crushed aggregate in concrete work where a smaller stone gives a smoother finish on an exposed face.

What it is not is a bearing course. Open stone spreads load poorly and will never pack flat, so a pad, a drive or a shed floor needs a graded mix with fines beneath it, whatever goes on top.

Does it need anything under it where the ground stays wet?

On flatwoods ground, yes. Those soils sit over a hardpan and hold water at the surface for days after a storm, and the failure mode there is not the stone moving but the sand moving into it. Fine quartz travels in water, reaches the voids and fills them, and a filled layer has lost the only property you bought it for.

A non-woven separation fabric between the sand and the stone is the fix, carried up the sides of a trench with enough overlap to fold across the top. On a pad or a ground cover it goes flat under the whole area rather than just at the edges. The second thing to set before you dig is the outlet: in the wet months the water table rises, and stone below it will stand full of water, which is fine as long as there is somewhere lower for the water to go.

How deep does it go around a raised bed or under a boat pad?

For a ground cover or a path surface, 2 to 3 inches over fabric is enough to hide the ground and keep its look. For drainage fill around a pipe, plan on a bed of 3 inches under the pipe and cover of at least the same over it. For a parking or trailer pad, the stone you see is a 3 inch top course and the depth that matters is the compacted base underneath it.

Loose depth and settled depth are different numbers. Open stone drops roughly a tenth of its loose thickness as it beds in under traffic and rain, so a 3 inch spread reads closer to two and a half by the end of the first wet season. Order for the loose figure and top up once rather than short yourself twice.

Yards and tons for a bed plot, a play area blanket and a boat pad

The calculator takes feet for length and width and inches for depth, allows several areas at once, and runs (L x W x D/12) / 27 = cubic yards, then converts by density. This site publishes #57, #67 and 3/4 inch crushed stone at about 2,800 lb per cubic yard, roughly 1.40 tons per yard. Three hypothetical examples:

• Stone between and around three 4 ft by 12 ft raised beds inside a 16 ft by 22 ft plot, 3 inches deep. 16 x 22 = 352 sq ft, less three beds at 48 sq ft each (144 sq ft) = 208 sq ft. 208 x 0.25 = 52 cubic feet. 52 / 27 = about 1.9 cubic yards, or roughly 2.7 tons.
• A drainage blanket under a 20 ft by 24 ft play area on ground that stays soggy, 4 inches deep. 20 x 24 = 480 sq ft. 480 x (4/12) = 160 cubic feet. 160 / 27 = about 5.9 cubic yards, or roughly 8.3 tons.
• A 10 ft by 24 ft boat pad top course at 3 inches. 10 x 24 = 240 sq ft. 240 x 0.25 = 60 cubic feet. 60 / 27 = about 2.2 cubic yards, or roughly 3.1 tons, with the compacted base below ordered separately.

Check your own measurements in the stone calculator before you settle on a quantity.

Getting a load landed where the work is

Choose the tip spot before the day rather than on it. Open stone is awkward to wheelbarrow any distance, so the heap wants to be as close to the trench or the pad as firm ground allows, with room for the truck to back and lift. On a low lot in the wet months that usually means the drive rather than the yard, and a few extra wheelbarrow runs is a better trade than a truck sitting in soft sand.

Have the trench cut and the fabric laid before the stone arrives so it goes straight in. Delivery is arranged at checkout by ZIP code, and the driver needs clear overhead space and a route to the drop. Once your figure is settled, pick a quantity and a date on this page.