How to Read an Asphalt Weight Ticket

The scale ticket is the record of how many tons arrived. Gross, tare, and net are the three numbers that matter, and they should be compared with the tons your area and thickness imply.

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Gross, tare, and net

A loaded truck is weighed, that weight is the gross, and the empty truck weight is the tare. Net tons are gross minus tare, converted into tons. Some tickets show pounds, so divide by 2000 to get tons. The ticket should identify the date, the mix, the truck, and the customer or job. If you receive more than one load, add the net tons. Do not add gross weights. Keep the paper or the photo even on a small driveway, because arguments about thickness are really arguments about whether those net tons were enough for the area. The price on the ticket, if it appears, is the plant's quote for that sale that day. A ticket from another job does not set your price.

Matching the ticket to the driveway

Planning tons are length times width times compacted thickness in feet times a density around 145 pounds per cubic foot, divided by 2000. Confirm the density with the plant. The common band is about 140 to 150. Use AsphaltTons.com so the arithmetic is not the thing you fight about. A measuring wheel can supply length and width and is not a survey. If the ticket net is close to that planning total, you are in a reasonable range, subject to waste and real density. If the ticket is much lighter, ask for thickness checks while the mat is hot. If someone tells you the truck 'looked like three tons' without a ticket, you do not have a number. Volume in the bed is a poor substitute for the scale because mix settles and beds are not measuring cups.

What a ticket does not prove

Net tons do not by themselves prove thickness, compaction, or that the right mix was placed in the right spot. Tons can be dumped short of your drive, left in the truck, or spread over a larger area than you measured. Pair the ticket with a simple sketch and a probe or core. The ticket also does not prove the base was compacted. A full tonnage of asphalt on soft soil will still rut. Sealcoat is absent from this record on purpose: it is not sold by the asphalt scale and it does not appear as structural tons. File tickets with the proposal. Years later they answer the question of how thick the driveway was supposed to be, which is the first question in any repair-or-replace decision.

A practical sequence

Find gross, tare, and net on each ticket and convert net to tons if needed.
Add net tons only, for every load placed on your driveway.
Compare that total with planning tons for your area and thickness.
Save the tickets with your measurements and any probe notes.

The mistake to skip

Accepting a verbal tonnage without looking at net weight on a scale ticket.

Questions people ask

Why is tare different from last time?

Trucks differ, and a truck with leftover debris or a different bed will not match another truck's empty weight. Use the tare printed for this load.

The ticket says pounds. Is that tons?

Divide net pounds by 2000 to get net tons. Do not treat a pounds figure as tons.

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