Delivery Minimums, Fees and Split Loads

The minimum load charge, and why it exists

A minimum load charge covers the cost of the trip itself — driver time, fuel, and the truck being unavailable for another delivery — independent of whether it's carrying half a yard or a full load. Below that minimum quantity, ordering more material than the job strictly needs, up to the minimum, is often genuinely cheaper than ordering exactly what's needed and paying the same delivery charge for a partly-empty truck. It's worth asking the specific minimum before finalizing quantity on a small order, since it can change whether a slightly larger order is effectively free.

Per-mile surcharges: distance from the yard, not your neighborhood

Many yards include a base delivery radius in their standard price and add a per-mile surcharge beyond it — and that radius is measured from the yard's own location, not from a city center or a general service area a website might imply. Two addresses that feel like they're in the same general area can fall on opposite sides of a yard's free-delivery radius depending purely on which direction the yard itself sits from each one, so it's worth confirming the actual mileage-based charge for your specific address rather than assuming a nearby competitor's stated radius applies the same way.

Split loads: two materials, one trip, one extra fee

Delivering two different materials in the same truck — half a load of mulch and half of soil, say — saves a second delivery charge, but it isn't automatically offered or automatically free. Splitting a load means dumping partway, relocating the truck, and dumping again, which is more work for the driver than a single-material drop, and many yards either charge a split-load fee to cover that or decline to split loads below a certain quantity of each material. Ask specifically whether a split load is offered and what it costs before assuming it's the default — some yards simply don't do it and expect two separate deliveries and two separate minimum charges instead.

The access questions nobody asks until the truck is in the driveway

• Can the truck actually turn onto the street and into the driveway — a large delivery truck's turning radius is significantly wider than a car's, and a tight residential street or a sharp driveway angle can be a real obstacle a phone quote never asks about.
• Is there enough overhead clearance to raise the dump bed — a loaded dump truck needs meaningful vertical clearance above it to tip the bed and actually dump the load, not just enough height to drive underneath, so low branches or power lines near the drop point matter even if the truck itself fits.
• Can the driveway or ground surface actually bear the truck's loaded weight — an older driveway, one running over a septic tank or field, or a buried utility line shallow enough to be at risk, can be damaged by a fully loaded delivery truck in a way that costs far more to repair than the delivery ever saved.
• How close can the truck actually get to where the material needs to end up — if the truck can't reach the back yard or the far side of the house, the material gets dumped as close as access allows and moved the rest of the way by wheelbarrow, which is worth planning labor time around rather than discovering on delivery day.

What to do about the pile once it lands

Lay a tarp down before the truck arrives if the material is going onto a driveway, patio or lawn you don't want stained or compacted — cleaning gravel dust or soil residue off concrete after the fact is a genuinely harder job than putting a tarp down first. Cover the pile itself if rain is likely before it gets spread, since a soaked pile is heavier to move and, for some materials, harder to work with once saturated.

Move the pile within a reasonable window rather than letting it sit — material left on a lawn for more than a few days can kill the grass underneath, and a pile left in a driveway or street-adjacent spot for too long can run into a local ordinance about material blocking a right of way, which varies by municipality and is worth a quick check for anything that can't be moved and spread the same day it arrives.