Wheelbarrows greatly reduce the amount of physical labor and workload involved in any task.
They facilitate load distribution effectively, allowing large, heavy loads to be moved and transferred with great ease.
If you’ve done a lot of work in your yard or garden, you know how valuable and effective wheelbarrows can be.
When filling in an area of your yard with dirt, it’s helpful to know how much soil your wheelbarrow can carry so you don’t have to make as many trips carrying the soil.
Also, if you intend to cover a certain area of your yard with dirt, knowing the capacity of your wheelbarrow determines how many full loads you’re going to need for the area.
Key Takeaway: Wheelbarrows come in different sizes, they can range from 2 cubic feet all the way up to a lot larger, like 6 cubic feet for a “contractor” type wheelbarrow.
A traditional deep basin garden wheelbarrow is around 3 cubic feet; some smaller garden wheelbarrows are around 2 cubic feet.
What Is The Capacity Of A Wheelbarrow?
For a wheelbarrow to be practical, it has to be easily lifted and moved by one one person.
Thus it is important to assess the size of the wheelbarrow you want to use. Although wheelbarrows come in all sizes and volume, rarely does a wheelbarrow hold more than ten cubic feet.
So, just as a note larger may not be better, but you should certainly think about it. In addition to cubage, the more you can carry at once, less repetition of yourself, as when terrain is a concern.
For example, a standard wheelbarrow is capable of holding 100 liters at 80 cm long, 60 cm wide and 20 cm deep.
How To Calculate the Volume?
To determine the square component’s volume of the wheelbarrow, you simply multiply length x width x depth (for example, 2 ft. length x 2 ft. wide x 2 ft. depth = eight cu. ft.).
That said, wheelbarrows come in many sizes and are designed for different load sizes and purposes.
From 2 cubic feet which is shallow to 6 cubic feet which is much deeper.
A typical garden wheelbarrow with a deep basin can carry up to three cubic feet and a shallower typically carries up to 2 cubic feet.
Another important consideration in a wheelbarrow is weight. A regular wheelbarrow will hold around eight cubic feet while weighing closer to 55 pounds.
To prevent damage – do not overload your wheelbarrow even if your load is not even close to full.
The shallow tray wheelbarrows intended for gardening are usually 2 cubic feet in size, these trays are great for light to medium loads at home or in a landscape.
A deep tray wheelbarrow is the same as shallow tray wheelbarrows with the exception the depth of the trays will accommodate mulch or aggregate material anywhere from 3-6 cubic feet.
In terms of a cubic meter it depends on the size of wheelbarrow, however, regular size full wheelbarrow would add up to around .10 cubic meters, and there are 1000 liters in 1 cubic meter, so 10 full wheelbarrows would equal 1 cubic meter from this perspective.
Lastly – again do not overload your wheelbarrow to the point you can not push it, or you are pushing yourself harder than your body can handle. You can injure yourself attempting to push your body beyond its limits.
What Is A Wheelbarrow Yard?
Garden materials including mulch, soil, waste, etc., are typically quantified in cubic yards.
The volume or load capacity of a wheelbarrow is measured in cubic feet.
All cargo fitting in one cubic yard will consume 27 cubic feet of space.
This means that you can move one cubic yard of the soil in 14 cycles (two cubic yard wheelbarrow). If this will be a regular job, you probably need a larger model.
A two cubic foot wheelbarrow is 14 wheelbarrow loads in a cubic yard and a three cubic foot wheelbarrow is nine wheelbarrow loads in a cubic yard.
You will see the shallow basin (two cubic foot version) more in use, while seeing the bigger version more than the smaller version.
Both versions of the wheelbarrow must have a crest to fill their capacity to the most.
While this can vary, all full-size dump trucks of materials have about 18 cubic yards of materials; this is roughly about 252 smaller wheelbarrow loads or 162 bigger wheel barrow loads.
To compare, a truck full of dirt can weigh 20 tons or more. A cubic yard of soil weighs about 1.3 tons.
Three cubic feet of top soil (one wheel barrow load) weighs about 290 pounds and two cubic feet weighs about 185 pounds.
Depending on the moisture content, it can vary, but one cubic foot of soil normally weighs 108lb and a standard wheel barrel is about 3-5 cubic feet.
Given the weight of dirt, a wheelbarrow full of dirt is on average, around 324-540 pounds. Thus, 3 cubic feet is 0.11 cubic yards.
If you were to fill a one cubic yard location using a normal 3 cubic foot wheelbarrow, you would have to take 9 trips.
How Many Shovels Do You Need To Fill A Wheelbarrow?
In general, 5-6 full-size shovels can fill one cubic foot of material, while a regular wheelbarrow holds 3-5 cu. ft.
So, it will take 15-30 shovels to fill a wheelbarrow. One cubic foot of moist, loose dirt is approximately six full-size shovels but actual coverage will vary.
A cubic yard of dirt is 3 ft. long, 3 ft. wide and 3 ft. high, therefore one cubic yard = 27 cu ft.
Typically, you will need 5-6 shovel fulls to heaping to make up one cubic foot of dirt.
So, by using the figures presented, that would lead to 135-162 shovels full of dirt to make up one cubic yard.
A cubic yard weighs around 1.5 tons (3000 lbs.), soils tend to be lighter – typically 1000-1200 pounds/scoop.
Final Thoughts
Wheelbarrows are available in many different sizes for the tray.
Larger trays equal more load capacity. A wheelbarrow with a higher load capacity will reduce trips, especially if you have a big garden, farm, or job site.
If you are constantly hauling heavy stuff like soil, a high capacity is a good idea. It is important to choose the correct size for your garden or job.
Using the 2-cubic foot wheelbarrow, there are 14 loads to a 1 cubic yard, and using the 3-cubic foot wheelbarrow, there are 9 loads to a 1 cubic yard.
On average, it takes 5 or 6 shovelfuls to fill 1 cubic foot of soil (though shovel size varies) so it would take somewhere between 15 and 30 shovels to fill a typical 3-5 cubic foot wheelbarrow.