How do I keep gravel out of my yard when plowing snow??

[GregbkH]

I put a slotted piece of 2" pipe on the cutting edge of my rear blade. It works very well. However, I drive the first snowfall into the gravel with my tires. The snow usually melts into the gravel, sort of leveling it out, then freezes. If the gravel is still soft I lengthen the top link to rock the blade back onto the skid shoes leaving about an inch gap. Once the gravel base is frozen solid I shorten the top link and run the pipe flat on the ground. Hardly no gravel in my lawn come spring.

 

[nwltruck]

This is what we came up with. Keeps the blade off of the gravel, but can be tipped forward the use the cutting edge.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

If I buy skid shoes for my blade will that fix my problem? Winter is just around the corner and I know I will be plowing my driveway unfortunately it is gravel and come spring I will spend hours trying to pick all the gravel out of my yard, I try not and drop the blade all the way down but my drive is not perfectly smooth so I have problems. Any ideas?

Pack the driveway with newly fallen snow and let about 1" of ice form over the gravel before you plow. In Eastern Ontario that ice pack will last all winter. Mind you, the underlying mud will be waiting for the unwary snow removal guy during spring breakup.

 

[PhysAssist]

Ditto to the "leave the first couple of storms in place" school of thought.... I now have a paved driveway, but for the 20 or so years before that I would use wife's car, a 4WD Matrix with 50-series tires, or my old '72 Blazer, to drive back & forth, up & down, to pack down the first few storms. I usually ended up with a nice, solid base as a result, about 2-3 inches thick. I used to use a walk-behind blower, but now have my tractor with a front-mount blower.:thumbsup:

Yes, it did occasionally ice up; I just kept some sand in plastic bags on hand (still do!), and hand-spread when necessary. My drive is about 250 feet, uphill to the road, steep in parts, and on a north-facing slope. I know, not good planning, but it is what it is.

The solid base worked well for me to minimize rock-picking in the spring; not 100%, but tolerable, and far better than paying a local teenage hot rod to plow it with a pick-up truck! (Can you visualize "lawn sod furrow"?:laughing

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When we do get icing of our south-facing hill on the driveway, we spread wood ash either mixed 50/50 with halide (rock salt) or by itself, and it really helps to keep the slipping and sliding to a minimum. They also seem to help bind the gravel tighter in the dirveway.

 

[TerryR]

When we do get icing of our south-facing hill on the driveway, we spread wood ash either mixed 50/50 with halide (rock salt) or by itself, and it really helps to keep the slipping and sliding to a minimum. They also seem to help bind the gravel tighter in the dirveway.

Very interesting. We've been told by our local grading people to never use salt or other ice-melting chemicals on a gravel road because it works into the soil below and keeps it from freezing, turning the whole driveway into a muddy miss all winter. They say they have had to fix such cases by excavating out the whole roadbed and replacing it.

Is using salt, etc., on gravel widely done?

Terry

 

[PhysAssist]

Very interesting. We've been told by our local grading people to never use salt or other ice-melting chemicals on a gravel road because it works into the soil below and keeps it from freezing, turning the whole driveway into a muddy miss all winter. They say they have had to fix such cases by excavating out the whole roadbed and replacing it.

Is using salt, etc., on gravel widely done?

Terry

I don't think I have to worry about water sitting on my fairly steep grade, and the driveway turns at the bottom, so any run off drains right off the side. In fact, during the spring and fall rains, we have problems with the erosive torrents that run down it causing washouts on the surface.

I don't know what happens if you use salt on flat gravel, so it may be a problem there. However, we more often use the wood ash, anyway. I have been considering switchong to coal, because the cinders left over are even better for the driveway.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Town road crews that maintain gravel roads in Vermont add enough salt to the sand pile to keep it from becoming a solid mass. Then they load out of the south sunny side and drop it over a screen to sort out the frozen lumps that won't go through the truck spreader. So they are adding some salt to the gravel road and it does no harm as it washes away with the melting snow and spring rains and gets back to the ocean. They don't place straight salt on a gravel road as it would make a muddy mess and a frozen road with a bit of sand on top is a better surface and is often smoother then the same road in summer.

 

[PhysAssist]

Town road crews that maintain gravel roads in Vermont add enough salt to the sand pile to keep it from becoming a solid mass. Then they load out of the south sunny side and drop it over a screen to sort out the frozen lumps that won't go through the truck spreader. So they are adding some salt to the gravel road and it does no harm as it washes away with the melting snow and spring rains and gets back to the ocean. They don't place straight salt on a gravel road as it would make a muddy mess and a frozen road with a bit of sand on top is a better surface and is often smoother then the same road in summer.

Speaking only for myself, I would much rather drive on roads covered with packed snow, much rather than the slippery greasy slush we always end up with here where they avoid sand like it's from the debbil, and don't like to plow until the roads are impassable, but will salt if someone a county away even mentions the word snow.

 

[brewdog]

This is a nice looking setup. Love the hydraulics, makes it very flexible for cleaning ditches.

I put a slotted piece of 2" pipe on the cutting edge of my rear blade. It works very well. However, I drive the first snowfall into the gravel with my tires. The snow usually melts into the gravel, sort of leveling it out, then freezes. If the gravel is still soft I lengthen the top link to rock the blade back onto the skid shoes leaving about an inch gap. Once the gravel base is frozen solid I shorten the top link and run the pipe flat on the ground. Hardly no gravel in my lawn come spring.