Dirt Road Repair

[DAP]

Project: 1,000 feet of driveway

Problem: This 'lane' is an easement which serves as access to my property. It's long, it's narrow, and it's not flat. At about 10 feet wide at best, it is lined with forest trees (prohibiting a blade for snow removal, must blow or bucket it out).

The previous owners NEVER did anything good to this drive, except ruin it with a rear blade on an old JD collector tractor.

It has several depressions which hold water seemingly all year.

The center section of it is a gentle rise of about 60 feet but has a terrible rut on the low side. Water collects and travels down the grade. When the water collects, the structure softens. When the structure softens, driving on it exacerbates the problem (delivery trucks, trash collection, oil delivery, etc.)

I refuse to pave this lane as A: it's an easement and not my property, paving would cost 20,000+, paving would look bad aesthetically.

Some sort of stone fill is required. I have a local quarry which I have not stopped in at yet.

By spring, all things willing, I will have an orange machine to help correct, if not temporarily, parts or all of the lane.

Solution: <your ideas here>

Attached is a picture from last year showing the lane as it heads out 1000 feet to the road, to give you an idea of size and restrictions ... Looking closely, one can see some of the "small ponds". Of course, since I'm in a severe drought ... they're kinda dry prior to this weekends snows.

Thanks!

Doug

 

[MikePA]

I'd stop in at that local quarry and (1) Ask what kind of stone they recommend and (2) Get them to deliver it. A good dump truck driver can raise the bed while they're driving forward and lay down a consistent layer of stone. They should also fill in the large depressions to bring them level with the rest of the road before doing this.

Also, as a rough estimate you're talking about 123 cubic yards of stone (1,000' x 10' x 4 inches)

 

[DAP]

Q: I labored last summer with filling in some of the holes with some gravel. The material was 1/2 golf-ball sized. It worked for a coupla months, but as soon as it got real wet, the stones were pushed down into the holes and/or spread out again.

I suspect that this because the entire surface wasn't covered, but don't know.

Just trying to prevent some costly trial and error. Thanks fellas!



Doug

 

[MossRoad]

Gravel is round and tends to push out. Try some of the other paving materials mentioned in other posts. I used slag from the steel mills. It was cheap and rough so it locked together. Makes a great road bed and is easy to maintain.

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>

 

[Knight9]

There is a cover fabric that is available to stabilize a road base and prevent the costly stone from sinking down into the dirt/mud. Unfortunately, for a 1000' driveway I'm guessing this would be a little too expensive to be worthwhile.

Kevin

 

[MikePA]

Another way to help the people at the quarry would be to tell them you want to prepare the road for paving and then ask them what kind of base would you need. You should also tell them about the 'stone eating' holes since they might recommend a different type/size of stone to fill the depressions.

 

[RobS]

Just a watch-out-for... you may need to do some tree trimming to allow a dump truck with raised bed to get down your lane. If there are large limbs the driver may not even want to do it. I'm looking at a similar project though it's not wooded /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[DAP]

In my locale, the material used most, probably for cost reasons seems to be the shale chips. That stuff is everywhere around here and they wholesale it all over the place.

It's light, unround, and smallish and doesn't seem to stay put for more than 2 or 3 years.



Doug

 

[PitbullMidwest]

Your lane looks alot like mine did when we bought our property. Water always takes the path of least resistance and since the surrounding road is better compacted, the water will always find its way to those holes, even if you "fill 'em up".

Get a box blade with rippers and grade down to a level lower than the holes, lay down a good base of lime, coal cinders, slag or any of the other materials mentioned by others. Then lay down your gravel.

I used coal cinder from our local utility generator, they were free for the hauling and we spread then instead of gravel for quite a few years. They compact down really well and the road looks like blacktop. Unfortunately, when a new high efficency generator was installed, the cinder supply dried up. My father-in-law has a farm lane that was last cindered in '95 and will need gravel for the first time next spring.

My 2 cents worth, but from experience if you don't fix 'em now, you'll be throwing a lot of money down those holes

 

[Thomas]

Maybe try filling in the pot holes you have now than have crusher run or hard pack deliver,than crown your driveway a tad also blade the edge of the road.
A good driver should be able to ajust the chains on the dump truck tail gate to spread the load even,which should make a lot less work for you.

Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif