Who builds this,
and why it exists
A free set of pavement quantity calculators, run by one person from New York.
Jimmy, and a spreadsheet that got out of hand
My name is Jimmy. I work as a civil and software engineer, and I run this site under Big Techies, based in New York, USA. There is no team behind that name on this project — the calculators, the writing and the mistakes are all mine.
This started as a working spreadsheet. Anyone who has estimated asphalt knows the routine: area in one unit, thickness in another, a density from a mix sheet in a third, then a conversion to whichever ton the supplier bills in. It is not difficult arithmetic. It is arithmetic with four chances to slip a decimal, done under time pressure, usually the day before the trucks book.
Having a foot in both civil work and software meant the obvious next step was to stop rebuilding the same sheet and put it on the web where the conversions could not drift. That is all this site is. It is not a product, there is no company behind it in any meaningful sense, and it does not aspire to be either.
How the calculators are built and checked
The maths is not novel and I do not pretend otherwise. Volume times density, split by binder content. What takes the work is the defaults: which density, which binder percentage, which mix designation applies where. Those come from published specifications — VDOT, Caltrans, CDOT, MnDOT, NJDOT, NCDOT, Austroads, NZTA, Ontario MTO — and from the Asphalt Institute's MS-2. Every technical page lists what it drew from, with a link to the document itself.
Each figure gets checked three ways before it goes up: against the source, against the same quantity in the other unit system, and against the other pages here that quote it. The third check is the one that earns its keep.
In July 2026 that cross-check caught a real error. Five US state pages were treating 110 lb/ft³ as a density in their worked examples. The figure is actually 110 lb per square yard per inch — an area shortcut — and using it as a density understated tonnage by about 24%. The square-yards page had it right, which is how the two disagreed. Everything affected was recalculated at 145 lb/ft³. I would rather tell you that happened than have you find it yourself. How corrections are handled is set out in the editorial policy.
How this is paid for
Advertising. That is the whole model. The site is free, there are no accounts, nothing is gated, and there is no paid tier waiting behind a feature.
What advertising does not buy is influence over the content. No supplier, plant or contractor has any say over a default density, a mix comparison or a cost range, and there are no affiliate arrangements anywhere on the site. If that ever changes, it gets disclosed on the editorial policy page before anything else.
What this site is not
It is not a pavement design tool. Nothing here will tell you how thick a pavement should be for your traffic, subgrade and climate — that is a design decision, it needs real site data, and it belongs to an engineer who will put their name to it. Where a page shows a typical layer thickness it is describing common practice, not recommending a design.
It is not a quantity survey either. A proper take-off handles crossfall, tapers, kerb lines and ironwork. This does length times width.
And it is not a substitute for your Job Mix Formula. Once the JMF is approved, its density and binder content are the correct numbers for your job — not mine. Where my default and your JMF disagree, the JMF is right. The disclaimer covers this properly.
Found an error?
Tell me which page, which figure, and what you think it should be. That gets fixed fastest, and it is genuinely the most useful thing anyone sends me.
info@bitumencalc.com