Rubber Mulch vs Wood Mulch: Cost Per Square Foot at 2 Inches

A bag of Black Rubber Mulch Nuggets (1.5 cu. ft.) costs $15.50. A bag of Premium Dyed Black Hardwood Mulch (2 cu. ft.) costs $5.00. Those two numbers sit on the same shelf and they answer different questions, because the bags do not hold the same amount of material.

Read the volumes in the titles. The rubber bag holds 1.5 cubic feet. The hardwood bag holds 2 cubic feet. Setting one bag price against the other compares two different quantities of material. The rubber mulch vs wood mulch question has one honest answer, and it is the cost per square foot over the same bed at the same depth.

The three products in the Rockhouse mulch aisle

The mulch aisle in the Rockhouse store holds three products. Two are dyed hardwood and one is recycled rubber.

• Premium Dyed Black Hardwood Mulch (2 cu. ft.) costs $5.00 per bag, SKU MULCH-BL-BG.
• Premium Dyed Brown Hardwood Mulch (2 cu. ft.) costs $5.00 each, SKU MULCH-BR-BG.
• Black Rubber Mulch Nuggets (1.5 cu. ft.) costs $15.50 per bag, SKU MULCH-RB-BL.

Search Arkansas for black rubber nugget mulch and Black Rubber Mulch Nuggets (1.5 cu. ft.) is the bag those searches are describing. Rockhouse stocks it in black only.

The unit on each record earns a second of attention. The black hardwood record reads bag and the brown hardwood record reads each. Both titles state a 2 cubic foot bag, so one unit is one bag on either line. The rubber record reads bag and its title states 1.5 cubic feet.

The two hardwood colors carry the same $5.00. Black gives a bed hard contrast against green foliage and pale gravel. Brown reads warmer and disappears into a wooded lot the way a forest floor does. Nothing about that choice touches the invoice.

Cubic feet turn into square feet with one division

Mulch covers ground at a depth, and the depth decides everything. Two inches is the common depth for a decorative bed. Three inches is what a bed takes when the ground underneath still shows through at two.

Two inches is one sixth of a foot. A bag holding 2 cubic feet spread two inches deep therefore covers 12 square feet. Divide the volume by the depth in feet and the answer is the area. That single division produces the four numbers below.

• A 2 cubic foot bag at 2 inches deep covers 12 square feet.
• A 2 cubic foot bag at 3 inches deep covers 8 square feet.
• A 1.5 cubic foot bag at 2 inches deep covers 9 square feet.
• A 1.5 cubic foot bag at 3 inches deep covers 6 square feet.

Rockhouse states no coverage figure on any of the three product records. Those four lines come from the bag volume in each title and nothing else, and any buyer can check the arithmetic in ten seconds.

Cost per square foot at 2 inches

Take the two black products at the depth most beds get.

Premium Dyed Black Hardwood Mulch (2 cu. ft.) at $5.00 per bag covers 12 square feet. Divide $5.00 by 12 and the answer is $0.42 per square foot. Black Rubber Mulch Nuggets (1.5 cu. ft.) at $15.50 per bag covers 9 square feet. Divide $15.50 by 9 and the answer is $1.72 per square foot.

Now put the two ratios beside each other. The bag prices sit at 3.1 to 1. The square foot costs sit at 4.1 to 1. That whole extra point of difference comes out of the half cubic foot the rubber bag does not hold, and a shopper reading bag prices alone never sees it.

The same beds at 3 inches

Depth moves both numbers and leaves the gap where it was. At three inches the hardwood bag covers 8 square feet. Divide $5.00 by 8 and the answer is $0.63 per square foot. The rubber bag covers 6 square feet at that depth. Divide $15.50 by 6 and the answer is $2.58 per square foot.

The ratio holds at 4.1 to 1 because depth divides out of both sides. Rubber costs about four times as much per square foot as dyed hardwood at whatever depth a buyer picks. Pick the depth for the bed and let the material choice stand on its own.

What 100 square feet takes in bags and dollars

Bags come whole, so round every count up. A 100 square foot bed at 2 inches deep needs 16.7 cubic feet of material.

• 100 square feet at 2 inches: 9 bags of hardwood at $45.00, or 12 bags of rubber at $186.00.
• 100 square feet at 3 inches: 13 bags of hardwood at $65.00, or 17 bags of rubber at $263.50.
• 400 square feet at 2 inches: 34 bags of hardwood at $170.00, or 45 bags of rubber at $697.50.
• 400 square feet at 3 inches: 50 bags of hardwood at $250.00, or 67 bags of rubber at $1,038.50.

Those dollar figures are the whole of the material cost at the yard price. A 400 square foot front bed is where the decision starts to hurt, because the gap between the two materials passes $500.00 on one order.

Where the four times gap gets paid back

Rubber does not break down. The Rockhouse record for Black Rubber Mulch Nuggets (1.5 cu. ft.) describes recycled rubber that holds its black color and does not decompose. Dyed hardwood is wood. It composts in the bed and feeds the soil while it does that. The layer thins out until somebody tops it up.

That difference produces one piece of arithmetic a buyer can run at the kitchen table. Four hardwood applications at $0.42 per square foot come to $1.68. One rubber application costs $1.72 per square foot. The two materials cost the same money at four hardwood top-ups, and every top-up after that is money the rubber bed never spends.

Rockhouse publishes no replacement interval for dyed hardwood, and no supplier can publish one honestly. Weather and slope decide it on a particular bed. A homeowner who already knows how often that bed has needed topping up knows where the crossover falls on their own property.

Two more things sit on the rubber side of the ledger. Rubber holds its color where a dyed hardwood fades toward gray over a season. Rubber also stays in the bed through the kind of Arkansas downpour that floats wood chips out into a driveway.

Two things sit on the hardwood side. Wood feeds the soil as it breaks down, and a planting bed benefits from that in a way a rubber bed never will. Wood also costs a quarter as much on the first purchase. Cover 800 square feet at 2 inches and hardwood runs 67 bags at $335.00 against 89 bags of rubber at $1,379.50, so that one decision moves the order by $1,044.50.

Three numbers the mulch records do not carry

The store page cannot answer every question a buyer brings. Three gaps come up at the counter most weeks.

• Bag weight. The weight per unit field sits empty on all three records. Nobody can work out a car trunk load or a trailer load from the product page.
• Rated fall height. The rubber record describes a shock absorbent surface for playground use and states no rated fall height. That number belongs to the playground inspector and to the counter.
• Bags per pallet. No record states a pallet count. Free delivery starts at 3 pallets inside Garland County, and the counter states how many bags make a pallet.

Rockhouse also shows a second price for volume buyers on some records. What quantity earns that price is a counter question. The number to call is 501-532-1905.

Read the bag volume anywhere, on any brand

Bag volume is the whole trick and it works on any shelf. Mulch bags come in 1.5 cubic feet and in 2 cubic feet, and other sizes turn up too. The volume is printed on the front of every bag. Two bags at the same price with those two volumes are 33 percent apart per cubic foot, and nothing on either shelf tag says so.

Ask what the unit is before asking what the price is. That habit works on mulch and on any other material a yard sells by volume or by weight.

The fabric that goes under either one

Both materials sit on top of something. The weed cloth aisle holds six rolls of Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric. Every roll runs 250 feet long and every one prices each.

• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 3' x 250' costs $85.00 each and covers 750 square feet.
• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 4' x 250' costs $135.00 each and covers 1,000 square feet.
• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 6' x 250' costs $135.00 each and covers 1,500 square feet.
• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 8' x 250' costs $180.00 each and covers 2,000 square feet.
• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 10' x 250' costs $225.00 each and covers 2,500 square feet.
• Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric - 12' x 250' costs $275.00 each and covers 3,000 square feet.

Read the second and third rows again. The 4 foot roll and the 6 foot roll both cost $135.00, and the 6 foot roll carries 500 more square feet of cloth. On a 1,000 square foot job the narrow roll works out at $0.135 per square foot against $0.09 on the wider one. Three rolls in the middle of the aisle all land on that same $0.09 figure.

The rest of the shelf sits in Landscaping Supplies, which carries ten products in total. Plastic barrier lives there beside the cloth and the mulch.

Stone is the third answer to the same question

Plenty of buyers comparing rubber against wood should be weighing both against rock. River rock never decomposes and never washes out of a bed, and Rockhouse prices it by the pound. Today's companion post walks a 100 square foot river rock bed from square footage through to dollars, with the same depth arithmetic used above.

Pickup and delivery from the yard

Rockhouse runs a 7 acre yard at 5643 N Hwy 7, Hot Springs Village, AR 71909. The gate opens Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Delivery is free on 3 or more pallets to Hot Springs Village and all of Garland County. Rockhouse Stone Company has run this yard under the Bennett Brothers of Hot Springs name since 1972.

The online store lists every bag and its current price. Nobody can order through it. A pallet leaves the yard after a phone call to 501-532-1905 or a visit in person.

What to have ready before calling 501-532-1905

The counter can price a mulch order in about two minutes with these four answers.

1. Measure every bed and add the square footage together.
2. Pick a depth of 2 inches or 3 inches.
3. Say whether the bed takes dyed hardwood or rubber nuggets.
4. Give the delivery address, or say that you will collect the bags at the yard.

Rockhouse sells the material and does no on-site work. The counter turns square footage into a bag count and states the price beside its unit every time. Call 501-532-1905 with your square footage and your depth, and ask for both materials priced against each other before deciding.