this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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ELI5
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Explain it to me like I am 5. Everybody should know what this is about.
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Depending on the soil, as little as 135. Our back yard is notorious for being soft and springy, and one of my exes weighed that and would sink in slightly.
Btw, the average person weighs more than that because they're average. The question makes more sense if you just ask how much a person has to weigh. It's hard to find a single, worldwide average for all humans, but the range is from a low of about 130 to a high of about 180, which includes only adults.
In our yard, I've seen a 60lb bag of sand sink in and leave a barely visible depression after a few minutes.
Edited the title (question)!
Er - I also must ask that what weight measure are you using?
I was looking for kilograms ๐
Pounds lol. 135 is a looot of kilos, but fairly normal pounds.
135 works out to 61.12 kilos in my conversion app.
Rough guesstimate, I'd say someone as little as 50 kilos could sink into our soil, it would just spring back almost immediately. I know my niece doesn't leave a visible dent even when stomping, and she's around 40 kilos
But I've been on plenty of grass lawns that didn't give in under my feet, and I'm about 120 kilos (I'm a hoss, in American terms lol).
I've also been around a couple of guys that were over 400 pounds, about 180 kilos and higher. On typical soil, they didn't sink in visibly. Even playing football (handegg version), on fields that are fairly loose soil underneath, I never saw anyone actually sink in, just standing. You'll leave marks when you run, but not just standing.
However! If you're talking about something more like fresh tilled soil, I've seen my niece sink in to that kind of ground, once nearly to the top of her shoes. Even if you laid sod over soil like that, an adult male of average weight would sink in a good bit before they compressed it enough.
Hell, last year, we had a gully washer of a storm that flooded the back yard. The paths where I have grass were actually flooded where you couldn't see the grass at all. The next day, I went out to check for damage, got to the lowest point of the yard and hit a soft spot. Sank in up to my ankles.
All of which is just to point out that soil condition matters more than weight for what you asked about.