Check my math for dirt volume?

[Courk]

I need to replace the dirt around my flower beds. I don't have a long enough tape measure, and it's freaking cold right now, so I don't want to spend any more time out there than I need to, I'm just aiming for a rough estimate to see if this is something I can afford right now. So, ready for a mixture of units and guestimates? Hooray!

The side of my house is approximately 75 bricks long. Each brick is probably around 8 inches long. The flowerbed follows a squared-off C shape around the house. The flowerbed is approximately a yard deep. I want to replace the top 3-4 inches of soil. So, bricks, feet, inches, and yards, how many were going to St. Ives? No, that's not right.

I got 75*8 = 600 inches a side
600 inches = 50 feet (? that seems short)
50 ft * 3ft = 150 sq ft of flower bed to a side, plus a 3x3 ft area at the two corners

150+150+150+9+9 = 468 sq ft.

4 inches of soil to cover 468 sq ft = 468*.33 = 154.4 cubic feet, which, because I'm lazy, google tells me is 5.7 cubic yards of soil. That doesn't sound like much soil. Is that number just deceptively small, or did I not convert bricks to widgets to kittens to yards properly somewhere?

[Chuck]

Numbers change fast when dealing with volumes because you're cubing the conversion factor. The 5.7 is deceptively small.

[The Potter]

How many bodies are you burying?

[The Potter]

How about 5.7 cubic meters is 1500 gallons.

This is about the load of a small dump truck.

[Amb]

Yards, Feet, Gallons: My head broke on all this non metric stuff.

[The Potter]

The Metric Version

I need to replace the dirt around my flower beds. I don't have a long enough tape measure, and it's freaking cold right now, so I don't want to spend any more time out there than I need to, I'm just aiming for a rough estimate to see if this is something I can afford right now. So, ready for a mixture of units and guestimates? Hooray!

The side of my house is approximately 75 bricks long. Each brick is probably around 8 inches 20 cm long. The flowerbed follows a squared-off C shape around the house. The flowerbed is approximately a yardmeter deep. I want to replace the top 3-4 inches 8-10cm of soil. So, bricks, feet, inches, and yards, centimeters and meters how many were going to St. Ives? No, that's not right.

I got 75*20 = 1500 cm a side
1500 cm = 15 m
15 m * 1m = 15 sq m of flower bed to a side, plus a 1x1 meter area at the two corners

15+15+15+1+1 = 47 sq m.

4 inches 10cm of soil to cover 47 sq m = 47*0.1 = 4.7 cubic meter, which, because I'm lazy, google tells me is 5.7 cubic yards of soil. That doesn't sound like much soil. Is that number just deceptively small, or did I not convert bricks to widgets to kittens to yards properly somewhere?

[note: because 20 cm is slightly less then 8 inches it is not surprising to see a slight difference in the final answers.]


And now I am sure Amb can easily visualize 4700 liters of soil!
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