Best material and practices for 2000' driveway

[sidewinder770]

Hi everyone. I've found this site to be extremely valuable with all my tractor questions but this one is a little different. I know it's not really a tractor thread but since I will be using my tractor I figure it's appropriate. Not to mention all the pros on this site who do or have done what I'm looking to do.

To start I live in MI and have very sandy soil here- no clay or rocks to speask of. We built a new house and now that all the construction trucks are gone I'm trying to figure out the best materal and plan of attack for our driveway. Asphault would be nice but a bit out of my price range for this project. What I'm looking to do is put about 5000 SF of material between our house, barn and detached garage as well as about 2000-2200' of driveway probably 9-10' wide. The driveway has 1 rolling hill and a few very gradual inclines with a lot of twists and turns to it. It was 100% forest before we started so we took out all the trees where the driveway was going to be and all those within say 10-15' of the driveway edges. Being that this was forest before we started we had a lot of undergrowth and vegitation to "strip" out where the driveway was going to be and because of that and the weight of all the trucks our driveway is lower than the land off to each side. Right now it's basically 100% sand driveway which needless to say gets rutted up and washed out a lot.

Knowing that I have to build the driveway up (about 6 inches) and provide a good base material as well as a crown what material would you suggest? I've been to our road commission and they suggest a modified road base (22A) or a crushed concrete type product. I like the idea of a crushed concrete driveway because the road base seems to get pretty "sloppy" and muddy when it rains and "oozes" a lot when the frost comes out of the ground in the spring. After everything with the house we don't have much in the budget for a driveway but we need to do something.

So how would you tackle the project?
What materials would you suggest?
What method of installing the materials?
Anything else I should consider?

Right now I have a 35hp New Holland 4x4 tractor with a 6' 600lb box blade- will this be able to get the job done? I'm probably adding a HTL and a few hundred lbs of steel to the box in the next week or so.

As always thanks for any input and ideas!

 

[swiss]

Answered this one yesterday.

Ah road work so fun, I just rebuilt an old logging entrance road on my property. Here are the steps and costs:

1.) Grade current road flat, bulldozer or tractor work
2.) put down 8 oz Geotextile fabric over grade, about $350 for 14x300 foot roll. keeps the rocks from sinking in the mud
3.) Put down # 4 rock with a spreader truck 16 tons for $400 each load. On 1200' I put down 7 loads. I went heavy on the #4 as I have logging trucks and large equipment moving up and down the road consistantly.
4.) After 6 months add crusher run over the #4 stone, $380 each load with a spreader truck. The crusher run fills in the holes.

The number 4 stone is pretty serious and makes for a rougher but tough driveway. Some people use 57 stone instead of #4 then put crusher run over after 6 months again. With the fact that you do not have a base started you are going to need a good 6 inches of #4 stone as your first layer.

Steve

 

[dmay]

I just did over 9,000 sq ft of horse trailer turn-a-round and driveways to home, garage, barn and horse paddock. Here were the steps I took:

- hired experienced dozer/operator
- add base fill as needed to correctly grade base for drainage
- add geo textile material to cover base
- add 8 inches of 3/4 down limestone
- had dozer perform finish grade and compact

Absolutely amazing what a skilled tracked dozer operator with laser levels can do in a short amount of time. Definitely the right tool for the job gets the job done right.

 

[sidewinder770]

swiss- Thanks for the input, I did see your post on that thread as well. Little different situation for me since I have a driveway lower than the sides and just sand instead of a shale base. I've never used or heard anyone around here talk about using geotextile fabric. It makes sense to me but people around here aren't to up on modern practices either.

dmay- I've thought the same thing about getting someone with a dozer to get me a better rough grade and fill in some low spots. Not sure if we have a good supplier here for crushed limestone but I can make some calls.

I'll have to see what I can find for geo fabric suppliers around here. Sounds like I'd need about 6+ rolls of that stuff!

Sounds like I could use #4 rock as a base and to build up a bit as well- just depends on cost really. Is there something that would work just as well as the #4 for both base and finish?

 

[Rottresq]

Sidewinder770: You mentioned sides higher than road and in all the excellent advice you received no mention of swayles, culverts or rip-rap. You also say the drive has turns and small inclines.

Here in Colorado I bought 40 acres W/a 1/3 mile driveway, leading to a circle drive completely around the house and barn. Under that drive run four culverts that channel the swayle run-off into a pond.

Here is what I did, take what you like: The swayles should be present, but not deep ditches and the entrance and exit of each culvert should be rock lined, that's the rip-rap. If no rip rap the culverts will clog with mud in heavy rains. Place a few rip-rap rocks every 50 feet or so in the swayles to allow the water to pass but hold back the earth. The swayles should also have grass growing in them, no weed killer. Roots hold soil, bare soil washes away.

The previous owner of my place had culverts installed W/no rip rap, all were hopelessly clogged with mud and useless. I replaced them all, cost some $$ but now my property drains beautifully.

YES! Hire a top notch excavator, not your neighbor W/his BobCat. Get references and go look at his last three jobs. If he won't let you, he's not for you. Look into recycled asphalt as a driving surface. I have four inches of that over 6 inches of CDOT road-base. In the winter its hard and plows easily. In summer, being asphalt it gets warm and "melts" a bit into as close to a paved surface as you can have, short of a paved surface. It is nearly dustless, drains well, and I can easily grade it with my BobCat utility vehicle bucket. I have almost all clay here (horrible crud) in a troublesome low spot my excavator used crushed 3/4 cement, basically old freeways. It locks together and will not walk or sink in. Then the recycled asphalt over that. One more benefit from the swayles, they give you a place to daylight the rain gutters keeping that water away from the house. Good Luck.

 

[sidewinder770]

Rottresq- Thanks for the info. I think you have a very good point about the drainage. The only difference here is water doesn't puddle at all (except in low spots of the driveway because it's compacated and frozen right now). Once the water gets off the driveway it soaks in faster than you can imagine. I think the key is to get the driveway higher than the land next to it and have a good crown on the driveway. Once the water gets off the driveway it will soak in really fast. Seems they did a good job getting rid of most of the topsoil and down to just bare sand which is good- I just need to build it back up with something that will drain well.

I'm making a few calls to some local excavating and gravel companies to see what they advise and get some quotes going. I kind of thought this could be something I could do myself but it's sounding more and more like it would probably be better to get a pro in to do it.

I'm thinking about reclaimed asphalt or reclaimed concrete as a top coat but we'll see what kind of pricing I can get on that. So I'm thinking I'll build up a few low spots with sand (or maybe road base), then use the fabric with a good 4" base of #4 to get it above the surrounding area. Do I need to wait to put the top coat of reclaimed ashpalt/concrete down or can that be done right after the base is installed?

As much as I don't have a lot of money to throw into this it sounds like something that should be done right the first time because fixing it later will just cost more time and money.

Thanks all for the advise and keep it coming as I need all the options and opinions I can get!

 

[dmay]

You should compact all the layers. This is where a tractor just is not a good fit. A dozer is soo much heavier, has tracks and a big wide and heavy blade.

So get your base down, graded and compacted. Then add your geotextile material. It is nothing special. Similar to garden landscape cloth just heavier fabric and larger roll. You simply unroll it and add your top layer over top.

The purpose of the geotextile is to separate your expensive top material from base fill. Otherwise after time they will mix and eventually your top material can be absorbed into the base, requiring more top material and more work and never ending $$$.

 

[dstig1]

I ran across this stuff a while back. Struck me as pretty interesting, though I have no idea if it is worth it or not.

PolyPavement: Natural Soil Pavement - Liquid Soil Solidifier

 

[ITHINKICAN]

I vote at least one of you post pics. All those in favor - say I.

Ok. The I's have it. Please post pics. :thumbsup:

 

[mickish]

Why don't you check out if there is any road re-surfacing coming up in your area and get them to dump the millings on your property,I did the this and the road crew were more than glad as it save them on haualage to dump site, the millings make fantastic driveway.