- Understanding Earthwork Volumes
- Using the Volumes Dashboard
Understanding Earthwork Volumes
on July 31, 2019
When talking about earthmoving, you will often use the terms cut and fill. Cut is soil material that is removed from the ground, and fill is soil material that is added to it. When an excavator takes a scoop of soil out of the ground, that soil is called cut. When that scoop is carried to another location on the site and dumped, it becomes fill. Grading the site is nothing more than a complex series of scoops and dumps; that is, cuts and fills. At the end of the project, all of the scoops added together represent the cut value and all of the dumps added together represent the fill value. If these values are equal, then no soil needs to be transported to or from the site, thus reducing the cost of construction (not to mention the environmental impact). When cut and fill are equal, the condition is referred to as a balanced site. As a designer, you should strive to balance the earthwork of your designs whenever possible.