Gravel Driveway Repair

   / Gravel Driveway Repair #1  

mfjohnston

New member
Joined
May 10, 2002
Messages
16
Location
Boyds MD
Tractor
B 2410
I have a driveway problem. A recent 8 inch snow followed by an tremendous ice storm and a series of heavy trucks delivering christmans stuff pumping up water has left a portion of my driveway a complete mess. (Impassable) I would have it professionally treated and tar & chipped or otherwise paved but the winter months are not favorable. My little loader is pretty good at smooting out the ruts while adding some new gravel in low spots when the weather is right. That will leave me with with a base of intermixed 1.25 stone and clay but it will all haaped again with water and traffic. I was told that plaing down a geotextile fabric and top that with 3+ inches of crussher run would do a pretty good job which I can pave over later or simply leave alone. Its about a 100 foot setion of driveway and I will need to put a draining conduit underneath at two points. I dont want to do this if I am missing somehting and will simply have to do it again. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have read some other threads which are usefull but dont hit the point dead one. Thanks
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #2  
As you found out a simple 1" of stone does not make for a decent driveway. You need a substantial base to stand up to vehicle traffic. Here's what I did ~12 years ago - removed 6 inches of top soil, put down 6 inches of 2 - 4 inch cobblestones, (bank run gravel), and top dressed with ~3 inches of crusher run. I've never had any pot holes, rake the driveway once a year and top dress with ~ an inch of crusher run every 3 - 4 years. I've had 100's of heavy trucks in and out in all weather without a problem.

You may be able to get away with less stone by using the geotextile clothe, but nothing beats a good foundation.
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #3  
JJT, if you went down 6" and added a total of 6" stone and 3" crushed rock that leaves you 3" above the surrounding dirt/grass. Is that a problem at all? Or would you recommend going down lower and bring the driveway flush with the yard? Or will it settle down 3"? thanks, I have a driveway coming up. brett w
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #4  
After compaction the crown of the drive is ~3" higher than the original grade, and the edge tapers to ~1- 2" higher than the original grade. The dirt shoulder, now sod is also 1 - 2" higher than the original grade.

I would not build a drive level with the existing lawn, you'll end up with a trench that holds water, which will cause the drive to sink with every passing car.... High and dry is the only way to build a gravel roadbed.
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #5  
<font color=blue>High and dry is the only way to build a gravel roadbed.</font color=blue>

I agree. In snowy areas low driveways get drifted shut easier. High ones are less prone to this.
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #6  
Did you have it compacted or are you speaking of just natural settling/ compacting?
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #7  
I like the way JJT had his gravel drive built and it pretty well matches the way we did ours. You have to get a base built before you can expect to keep a good gravel drive with a nice top coat. In our area of the South things are pretty much red clay that will tend to work its way up through the stone until a good 6"-8" base has been built up. Although we started with about 6" of heavy gravel, it took several more applications over the first couple of years to get a good base. I think that the soil conditions of the area will determine what it takes to get a good base.

To me the most important aspect of creating good gravel drives is water control. You have to keep the water off the drive and give it a good place to go without eroding the drive. Building your stone up so that the drive is above grade, keeping a slight crown to move the water to the sides, cutting ditches to move the water along the sides and adding culverts where you need to move water across the drive. These are as important as how much or what kind of stone you add.

In Mfjohnston's situation I would say there are of combination of problems happening. If you need some culverts I would go ahead and get them in. Whether you pave or stay with gravel the water needs to be able to move without saturating your base or crossing your finished surface. My experience has been that if culverts are needed then ditches routing water to the culverts will also be required. It also sounds like the base needs to be built up and around here we use a #4 stone as base (1 ½ -2 ½ stone). To get you through the winter I would put down a couple of loads of base gravel if it were not practical to add the culverts at this time.

Good luck.

MarkV
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #8  
Laying fabric is a good idea, but 3 inches of rock on it will not be enough. If it is pumping with only 3 inches it will tear holes and the mud will come right on up. In the Pacific Northwest we get a lot of rain and use a lot of frabric. We put 2-4in a foot deep, depending on how heavily we are going to use the drive, then dress it off with 11/4 minus. If you are having heavy trucks on a thawed roadbed after a freeze it will take some rock to hold up.
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #9  
Ran into similar problems thanks to heavy trucks for concrete and building supplies for our new home.

I'm slowly adding to the road as I can afford it, but here's what I did:

I initially had scraped the area bare, then laid geotextile fabric down, followed by loads of post oak gravel. This is gravel up to 1 1/2" mixed with fines - it's used as road base material and compacts well.

After the concrete trucks got through, I discovered I had a 100 ft. stretch of soft spots where the road was a rutted mess. This was due to a couple of problems - the soil below the road was soft due to water being retained as well as the water not really having anywhere to go. The fabric helped immensly, but the trucks still pumped water up into the post oak gravel causing it to get heavily rutted.

My fix is ongoing and is in 2 parts - it has already proven to be effective:

1 - Road Repair.
I used the box blade and scraped down to the fabric through the length of the soft area, making a pile of wet gravel road base material at both ends of the soft area.
I bought a pallet of Portland cement bags from Lowe's ($6/bag, 35 bags) and spread the Portland as a stabilizer right over the fabric area. If I had done the road from scratch all over again, I would mix the Portland into the soil below the fabric, but I didn't want to pull it up this time. The cement was spread out enough to cover the entire road surface with at least an inch. Do not use Sacrete or regular concrete mix - it's the Portland cement by itself that you want, not the sand and aggregate.
I then spread the post oak gravel back over the Portland cement and used the ag tires and box blade to mix the cement and gravel together. The cement immediately started binding the soil fines, using the existing moisture in the gravel. For final grading I also added another load of gravel for surfacing. This was an economical but labor intensive way for me to stabilize the road - the cement mix helps to bind the gravel base as more of a mat and the fabric works to distribute the load. Cost was $210, but a load of cement stabilized sand was going to be over $400.

2. Drainage.
I realized that regardless of how I fixed the road, the area drainage needed to be modified, otherwise I would be forever fighting water problems. Our property has a large county drainage ditch with a culvert, plus a secondary drainage swale right inside the fence line, deep enough that a 12" additional culvert was needed when we first installed the road. However, the center of our property (where the road was) was retaining water. I decided to use the box blade to start scraping a 5 ft wide drainage swale on either side of the road all the way from the house end of the road to the secondary drainage swale at the front. This is only about a 1 ft drop, but that's enough to route the water away from road area. This is a continuing project, but it allows the water to drain from below the road base so that it's not pumped back up by heavy trucks.

Sorry to be so long winded, but my point is that not only do you have to repair and stabilize the road itself, you also have to take care of removing the water from the road area. Otherwise, you will always have rutting and soft spots as a problem.
 
   / Gravel Driveway Repair #10  
Construction truck traffic did the compaction. 200 yards of concrete, 1500 yards of sand, 500 yards of stone, dozens of lumber deliveries, etc.
 
 
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