Gravel Bags

Built for aggregate, not for general freight

A bulk bag rated for a light, free-flowing product will fail under gravel. Density is what matters: the same cubic capacity holds a very different weight depending on what goes in it, and aggregate sits at the heavy end of that range.

We spec gravel bags from the load down. You tell us the material and the fill weight; that determines the fabric weight, the seam construction, the loop design and the safety factor. The dimensions come last, not first.

Why volume is the wrong starting number

Most bag catalogues are organised by size, which is why most specification errors start there. A bag described as holding a cubic yard is describing its geometry, not its capacity. Fill that same bag with drain rock at 105 pounds per cubic foot and you are carrying roughly 2,800 pounds — past the safe working load of a great many bags sold on a one-cubic-yard label, while the bag still looks like it has room at the top.

The bag then fails on the third or fourth pick, and it looks like a defect. It was a specification error made before anything was ordered. Working from weight instead of volume removes the problem entirely, and it costs nothing but one number in an email.

What we hold in stock

Not every job needs a bag made to order. The stock line runs on a 5:1 safety factor with a document pouch on every bag, and it ships from inventory held on both coasts, so a standard specification can leave for the job site without waiting on a production run:

• Gravel bags — 35” x 35” x 35”, one cubic yard, 3,000 lb safe working load, 200 per pallet
• Material bags — 35” x 35” x 46”, 1.4 cubic yards, 3,000 lb safe working load, 200 per pallet
• Rock bags — 27” x 27” x 26”, a third of a cubic yard, 3,300 lb safe working load, 225 per pallet

Those cover a great deal of ordinary aggregate work. Everything above still applies to them: check your fill weight against the rating before ordering by the cubic yard, because the smallest bag on that list carries the highest load of the three.

Shotcrete rebound

Rebound is a problem of its own. What comes off the wall is wet, heavy, sharply graded, and it sets — so a bag that handled dry aggregate all morning is carrying something quite different by the end of the shift. We supply bags built for shotcrete and concrete rebound collection specifically: construction-grade fabric, heavy-duty seams, and sizing that accounts for the weight rebound picks up once it has taken on water.

Tell us the pour schedule and how quickly full bags get cleared. Material left to cure in a bag changes what you are lifting later, and that is a specification input rather than something to discover on the pick.

What to have ready when you call

• The material — gravel, road base, drain rock, crushed aggregate
• Bulk density, or enough description that we can look it up
• Target fill weight per bag
• How the bag gets filled and how it gets emptied
• Whether bags will be stored outdoors before use

That is enough to quote. If you do not have all of it, call anyway and we will work through it.

Where gravel bags stop being the right answer

Gravel is abrasive but it is not sharp. Once the material has cut edges — armour stone, blast rock, riprap — the failure mode changes from overload to puncture, and a heavier gravel bag is not the fix. That is a different construction, and it is what our rock bags are built for. If your aggregate arrives as a mix with sharp fractions in it, tell us; we would rather spec against the worst material in the load than the average one.

The other boundary is regulatory rather than physical. If what you are moving has to travel as dangerous goods, no amount of fabric weight makes an ordinary bag legal for it — you need a tested and marked package, which is what UN certification means and why it is a separate product rather than an upgrade.

The sites these bags go to

Gravel bags do most of their work on earthworks. Foundation and backfill aggregate on commercial construction sites, where a bag is often filled, moved and emptied inside a single shift. Trench spoil and structural fill on data center site preparation, which moves more material in its first months than the rest of the build combined. Ballast and access-road aggregate across solar arrays, staged for weeks in open sun well away from the nearest paved road.

Those three jobs put very different demands on the same bag: one is a single-day handling cycle, one is a volume-and-pace problem, and one is an ultraviolet exposure problem. It is the reason we ask where the bag is going rather than only what goes in it.

Getting a number

Send the material, the fill weight and how the bag gets handled and we will come back with a specification and a price — request a quote with those three and there is usually nothing else we need. If you would rather work it out in conversation, talk to us and we will get to the same place.