A cubic yard of standard concrete weighs approximately 4,000 pounds, or about two tons. That number applies to a solid slab of typical ready-mix concrete, the kind used for driveways, foundations, sidewalks, and most residential and commercial projects. The exact weight shifts depending on the mix design, the type of aggregate, and how much water is in the mix, but 4,000 pounds is the reliable baseline for planning and estimating.
Why the Weight Matters
Knowing the weight of concrete isn’t just trivia. It affects real decisions. If you’re ordering a delivery, you need to know whether your subgrade (the soil underneath) can handle the load. If you’re hauling bags in a pickup truck, you need to stay within your vehicle’s payload capacity. And if you’re calculating structural loads for a deck, second-story addition, or retaining wall, you need an accurate weight figure to size beams, footings, and supports correctly.
A standard concrete mixer truck can carry roughly 10 cubic yards per load, which works out to about 40,000 pounds of concrete alone, not counting the weight of the truck itself. That’s why concrete trucks are among the heaviest vehicles on residential streets and why many neighborhoods restrict delivery times or routes.
What Changes the Weight
The 4,000-pound figure assumes normal-weight concrete made with standard aggregates like gravel and crushed stone. Several factors push the number up or down.
Aggregate type: Concrete is mostly aggregate (the rocks and sand mixed into the cement paste). Standard mixes use limestone, granite, or gravel. Heavier aggregates like magnetite or barite, used in radiation-shielding walls at hospitals and nuclear facilities, can push a cubic yard well above 5,000 pounds. On the lighter end, aggregates made from expanded shale, clay, or slate produce structural lightweight concrete.
Water content: Freshly poured “wet” concrete contains more water than the cured slab, so a cubic yard straight off the truck weighs slightly more than the same volume after it has set and dried. The difference is modest, usually a few percent, but it matters for same-day load calculations.
Air entrainment: Many mixes, especially in cold climates, include tiny air bubbles to help the concrete resist freeze-thaw cracking. More air means slightly less weight per cubic yard.
Lightweight Concrete
Lightweight structural concrete typically weighs between 90 and 115 pounds per cubic foot, according to the Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute. Converting that to cubic yards (one cubic yard equals 27 cubic feet), a cubic yard of lightweight concrete weighs roughly 2,430 to 3,105 pounds. That’s a significant reduction from the standard 4,000 pounds.
Builders use lightweight concrete in upper-floor slabs, bridge decks, and precast panels where reducing dead load (the weight of the structure itself) saves money on supporting steel and foundations. It costs more per yard than normal-weight concrete, so it’s chosen when the weight savings justify the premium.
Heavyweight Concrete
At the other end of the spectrum, heavyweight or high-density concrete is designed specifically to be as heavy as possible. By swapping in dense aggregates like steel shot, iron ore, or barite, a cubic yard can weigh 5,000 to 6,000 pounds or more. This type of concrete is uncommon in everyday construction. Its primary use is shielding against radiation in medical and industrial facilities.
Bagged Concrete by the Yard
If you’re mixing concrete yourself from pre-mixed bags rather than ordering a truck, it helps to know how many bags make up a cubic yard. An 80-pound bag of pre-mixed concrete yields roughly 0.6 cubic feet of finished concrete. Since a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, you’d need about 45 bags at 80 pounds each to fill one cubic yard. That’s 3,600 pounds of dry bagged material, which produces close to the same 4,000-pound finished weight once water is added.
For 60-pound bags, which yield roughly 0.45 cubic feet each, you’d need about 60 bags per cubic yard. Either way, mixing a full cubic yard by hand is a massive job. Most people find that anything over a third of a yard is worth ordering from a ready-mix supplier.
Quick Reference by Volume
- 1 cubic foot: about 150 pounds (normal-weight concrete)
- 1 cubic yard (27 cubic feet): about 4,000 pounds
- Half a cubic yard: about 2,000 pounds
- 10 cubic yards (full mixer truck): about 40,000 pounds
These figures assume standard ready-mix concrete. For lightweight mixes, reduce by roughly 25 to 35 percent. For heavyweight mixes, add 25 to 50 percent or more depending on the aggregate.
Estimating How Much You Need
To figure out how many cubic yards your project requires, multiply the length, width, and depth of the area in feet, then divide by 27 (since there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard). A 10-by-10-foot patio poured 4 inches thick, for example, works out to about 1.2 cubic yards, which means roughly 4,800 pounds of concrete on your subgrade.
Most suppliers recommend ordering 5 to 10 percent more than your calculated volume to account for uneven subgrade, form bulging, and spillage. That buffer also means a bit more weight, so round up when estimating loads on soil or structures.