How do you calculate excavation volume?

Length × width × depth ÷ 27 for simple cuts, plus swell (soil expands 15–30% when dug) for trucking counts. A 200-bank-yard dig is 240–260 loose yards on trucks.

How many yards can an excavator move per hour?

Wildly variable: a mini-ex in tight access might move 10–20 yd/hr; a full-size machine loading trucks efficiently, 60–100+. Your machine, bucket, soil, and truck cycle decide — track your own averages.

What site factors change an excavation estimate most?

Access, soil type, water, and trucking distance. Clay digs slow and hauls heavy; a tight backyard turns a day into three; a 30-minute dump cycle halves your loads per day.

Field guide

How to Estimate an Excavation Job — Bank Yards, Loose Loads, Honest Hours

Excavation estimating is three conversions run honestly: plan dimensions to bank yards, bank yards to loose loads, and loads to machine-and-truck hours on this site with this access. Here's the sequence.

Step 1 — Volume, with swell

Bank volume = L × W × D ÷ 27. Then swell: soil expands when dug — commonly 15–30% by type (sand low, clay high). Bank yards size the hole; loose yards size the trucking. A 200-bank-yard basement is ~250 loose yards, and at 12 loose yards a load that's 21 loads, not 17. The swell line is where new estimators quietly lose a day of trucking.

Step 2 — Machine hours from your cycle, not the brochure

Rate the dig by your tracked production for the machine-and-soil pair: the same 210 that loads 80 yd/hr in loam manages half that in wet clay with a long swing to the truck. Track three jobs by soil type and you own the only production table that prices your work. Tight access gets its own multiplier — when the mini-ex does a big machine's job, the hours triple and the quote should say why.

Step 3 — Trucking is a cycle, not a count

Loads ÷ (round-trip minutes to the dump ÷ 60) = truck hours. A 15-minute dump cycle and a 45-minute one are different jobs entirely at the same yardage. Dump fees per load ride the same line.

Step 4 — The site walk lines

Locates called; private utilities daylighted by hand — priced
Erosion control if required — silt fence by the foot, inlet protection by the unit
Water management: pumping, sump pit, or "dewatering excluded, T&M if encountered"
Rock clause: unit price if refusal or rock is hit — in the terms, always
Restoration: topsoil back, rough vs. final grade, surface repair where tracks crossed

Step 5 — Margin and the tailgate quote

Direct cost ÷ (1 − target margin) — verify the divide habit on the free margin calculator. FieldSquire drafts the whole stack from a narrated site walk at your saved machine rates and sends the signable PDF before you leave — the excavation estimating app is free for 14 days.

Try it on a real job: FieldSquire's Solo plan is free for 14 days with no credit card — unlimited manual estimates and AI-assisted drafts you review line by line. Start the free trial or see the excavation estimating app guide.