Gravel Driveway Re-hab

[WVBill]

The attached picture summarizes my problem. My driveway goes from my house (just out of picture in lower image) past the barn and out to the road. Total length is 350'. Driveway is 2 years old.

The problems:
1) gravel has been compressed and mud is starting to ooze up in the tire tracks
2) driveway needs to be widened to accomodate turn into barn
3) land slopes down from house-end of driveway and across driveway from barn to a low-point about mid way along the length.
4) due to compression, tire track is now low-point and run-off runs down the driveway from house to low point (pink arrows on picture). Run-off from lwan-area also flows to this low-point.
5) From low point, run-off goes across driveway to drainage swale (pink arrow).

Here's my Plan: (I have a 36" wide box scraper and will be getting a 6' blade - also have a FEL.)

Cut a swale to about 6" deep using the box blade along the inside of the curve (yellow arrows). Account for the added width needed at the barn and terminate in a shallow "catch basin" at the natural low point.

Using the blade, adjust the pitch of the driveway so it is not crowned but has a pitch across it's width sown to the swale. (blue lines)

At the top of the driveway, between the house and barn, cut a "french drain" diagonally across the driveway to pick up run-off and direct it to the swale. (short green line in lower picture) This will consist of a 4" plastic perforated conduit buried below the gravel.

Do the same thing from the "catch basin" across the driveway to the drainage swale (green arrow in upper picture).

Lay geotextile fabric (or silt fence? - comments?) on lower 250' of driveway
Add 4" of #5 gravel to lower 250' of driveway. (any ideas on how many tons?)
Add 4" of crusher run gravel to entire driveway, parking area and apron at front of barn. (tonnage?)

Any thoughts, comments, ideas??

 

[Knight9]

Hey WVBill,

Looks to me like you have an excellent plan and have spent a lot of time analyzing the problems and figuring out how to fix them. I have some similar issues to deal with, so I will be interested to hear from you as your project progresses. One question I did have....is there any reason why you decided on a french ditch instead of a small culvert?? Was the culvert just too invasive?

Good luck with your project.
Kevin

 

[dmccarty]

The number that comes to mind for the weight of a cubic foot of granite is 150-175 pounds. So a cubic yard of the gravel or crusher run weigh about 4000 - 4725 pounds. About is the key word. On another thread someone had a website that would give you the weight on these products. The address is missing from my bookmarks.

I asked my father in law about this stuff, he just retired as a DOT inspector, and he told me the 150-175 number. I'm fuzzy on the exact number. When I was figuring out how much budget I was going to need for our 500 foot driveway I figured we needed about 180 tons of crush and run. I figured on a 12 inch depth just for grins and giggles with a 14 foot width. I have not done this yet so don't ask how it went! The quarry was charging $7.50 per ton of cursh and run.

Don't forget if the material is wet it wieghs more.....

You might want to run the box blade teeth over the current driveway after a good rain. I did this on my road after it had been heavily rutted by timber trucks. I was pleasently surpised how well I was able to fix the road and pull up alot of "missing" gravel. I'm going to rework the road again in the next couple of months since I've put some dipples in when working the tractor. The common road I share with my neighbors is really getting torn up due to construction traffic. I'm planning on working the road with the box blade to pull up the gravel and smooth things out. It will be muddy until the rains push the dirt back in the road. But it works and the price is right.

I really thought I was going to have to drop more gravel on my road after the timbering. But the tractor and box blade made everything nice again. Looked like a muddy mess after I did it but the rains made it look real good. I don't think I ripped to deep maybe 3-6 inches. It did not seem to take much....

WEAR hearing protection! Lordy but steel being pulled through gravel makes a hideously loud, painful sound!



Hope this helps...
Dan McCarty

 

[bpence]

I don't have any suggestions for your driveway re-hab........just wanted to let you know I enjoyed the photos with the many colored lines and arrows.

Bob Pence

 

[RobS]

Nice pics Bill, and a well-thought out plan. Just out of curiosity, what kind of prep work was done prior to the original gravel?

 

[Muhammad]

Bill,

Your drainage plan sounds good...

You should get about 80 sq ft per cubic yard of gravel at a 4" thickness. 1 cubic yard = 1.5 tons, I think...

Here's what I've got:

125' of driveway, average 10' wide, small slope from the road down to house...

Base layer is about 150 tons of shale... Finish layer is probably about 6" since I added 4" to what was a thin finish layer... crushed stone/pea gravel size. Has compacted very little on the tire marks, maybe 1/2" more than the center of the driveway has... works for me. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Let us know how it goes and don't forget to take photos along the way...

 

[RJohnson]

VWBill
I too have a very long gravel road to maintain and when I was looking at tractors one of the Kubota dealers put me on to a company called Grademaster Blade of Texas. I don't think they have a website but their number is 1-800-299-8582. I have included a scanned in picture from their brochure, hope it come out okay.
Their blade is supposed to lift the course material to the surface and let the fines go to the bottom. Their sloping dual action blade lets you keep a crown on your road. Maybe some of the others have tried this piece of equipment and know how it performs. It looked very promising to me and I am sure they would send you some information.

Randy

 

[Harv]

Muhammad -

You may have just answered a question I was about to post (you've always been one step ahead of me /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif).

I started laying out serious plans to fix my muddy stretch of tractor road. In a nutshell, I'm thinking about removing as much of the porous earth as I can with the box scraper and FEL, putting down that road fabric stuff and then building my road back up on top of that. (There will be drainage ditches, etc., but that's not germane to this question.)

I love the limestone crush I used with my culverts -- the way it handles easily and packs down hard as concrete, so that's what I plan to use for the finish layer. The question then remains as to what to use for the base layer. I'll need quite a bit, so I'm looking for some mass quantity of cheap bulk filler (emphasis on "cheap").

So tell me more about the shale you used. What are its dimensions and properties? Is it the "cheap" filler I'm looking for? Will it work well with the limestone crush? If I just ask any rock supplier for "shale", will he understand what I'm talking about?

Your answers will be graded and returned at the end of class. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Muhammad]

<font color=blue>plans to fix my muddy stretch of tractor road</font color=blue>

Huh? Looks fine to me... /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

<font color=blue>So tell me more about the shale you used.</font color=blue>

Actually, I didn't use it, but rather the previous owner of the property... he had the driveway done in '75 I think when everything was built...

Just about all the information I have is that he called it granite shale... perhaps crushed granite; I don't really know.

<font color=blue>I'll need quite a bit, so I'm looking for some mass quantity of cheap bulk filler (emphasis on "cheap").</font color=blue>

If I were in need of a base layer for a roadish type of path, I'd use 6-8" of #2 crushed stone (about the size of a quarter; may be called something else in your area). It isn't all that expensive... I think I paid about $6.50 per ton for #1 crushed, and #2 was about the same. Then on top of that, I paid a delivery charge of about $70 for up to 20 tons of stone.

When you say you'll need quite a bit, how much is quite a bit? Remember... 20 tons of stone is quite a bit; it goes farther than you think sometimes. What is the length/width of your muddy path? You might be in for transporting the fill bucket by bucket with those kind of conditions... might rack up some hours on this job, Harv! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

There could of course be sources of free fill in your area that might work... sometimes even the highway departments just dump certain types of fill. Once I got several loads of fill for free while having a trail dozed out... when they grind up roads, sometimes they just dump the fill. Helps to know someone at the dept, though. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Muhammad]

The actual weight per cubic foot/yard can easily change the estimates, obviously... granite heavier than crushed stone, maybe? I had heard that crushed stone weighs 1.5 tons per cubic yard... maybe that was a little off. Does anyone have that link? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif