Cost of crushed stone driveways?

[MDL]

It appears that my exisiting crushed stone driveway is just a "top" job as little crushed rock remains after installation about 15 years ago (I am not the original owner so don't know exact history). I would like to put in a nice crushed stone replacement and understand the correct way is to strip out 3-4 inches, lay down a good stone base and then top with the small stone.

I am looking at about 5,000 square feet of level driveway and was wondering how this type of job would price out.

Any ideas n pricing, tips, etc?

 

[dmccarty]

MDL,

I am waiting for some pictures to come back and then I'll post
the whole story of my new driveway. I just finished the
first phase of my driveway last Saturday. Its a curving
500 feet long drive with a turn around circle at the end.

I used ABC which is very dusty with lots of fines and has up
to maybe 2 inch rock. I also put down geotextile fabric. I
got lucky in that I got rain between work days so that the
fines where washed between the large stones. This stuff
sets up like concrete. With a flat area and the fabric I think
I was putting down about 4 inch of material. Where I had
to build up the drive to get over a culvert I have about two
feet of ABC built up over grade.

The only real traffic I have had on this so far was the 54,000
pound dump trucks backup up the drive to deliver the ABC.
I had something like 21/22 loads driven up that road. The
first part of the drive that is over the culvert held up just
fine. No rutting what so ever. The private road the driveway
intersects did not take the traffic well at all. I have ruts
on it but not on what I built. The road has a thin layer,
maybe three inches of stone and no fabric. It rutted. The
driveway did not. I think its because I'm using ABC AND the
geotextile fabric.

I have very muddy clay soil when we get rain. Since we are
in a drought we ain't getting much rain but I did get some
heavy downpours to see how the culvert worked and to
move the fines into the drive. Once we are back to normal
rain the fabric will keep the ABC from being pushed into the
mud.

From what I have seen so far the combination of ABC and
fabric works. For the 500 feet of drive I used about 730 feet
of fabric. The fabric is a nonwoven geotextile 360 feet to a
roll with each roll 12.5 feet wide. It cost around $295 per roll.
The ABC cost about around 160-170 dollars for a 16 ton
delivery. It looked like I was getting about 60 feet of drive
graveled 4 inches deep and 12.5-13 feet wind per 16 ton load.
A cubic yard of ABC should weigh about 3,000 pounds if it is
to NC DOT specifications.

When I get the pictures and make my "official" post on the
driveway I'll look at my receipts and figure up the final bill. I
am waiting on my last bill. But the numbers I have mentioned
should be pretty close.

I used alot of fabric around the turns I made, at the
intersection with the road, the turning circle, and the low
area I filled in added quite a bit to my final cost. The quotes
I was seeing for a simple straight drive without fabric but with
a little stump pulling was going to be about 10 dollars a linear
foot. I can't remember how wide the bid was at this point but
it was about 11 or 12 feet. I figured that the straight section
of of drive with four inches of ABC and fabric cost about
$2.50 per linear foot in material cost.

So I got a much better driveway and a heck of a better price.

Hope this helps,
Dan McCarty

 

[MDL]

Thanks for the feedback. I'd be interesting in seeing your full wrtie-up and the pictures.

Based on your pricing figures it would cost about $1,800 to do the 5,000 square feet I have, assuming I have to buy a second roll of fabric. That seems very inexpensive when compared to the other surfacing options.

Questions:

1) what does the geotextile do?
2) Did you do your own grading work?

 

[dmccarty]

MDL,

My supplier will cut lengths for me if I don't need a full roll...
He would prorate the cuts. I think the stuff was running
me about 81/82 cents a foot. If I got 280 feet he charged me
280*.82. The only time he charged me more was when I
needed a 100 foot section and he delivered it to me. I was
in the middle of spreading ABC and keeping up the the dump
trucks so I could not leave. The charge worked out to be
10 bucks or so for the delivery. If he delivered a full roll no
charge.

There are two types of geotextile fabric, woven and non
woven. The non woven is more puncture resistent so that
is what I used. And it is tough.

I did my own grading prior to putting down the fabric. And
I used the 4n1 bucket as well as the box blade to lay down
the ABC.

A key to using the fabric is to make sure that as many of
the roots and rocks are out of the driveway as possible. The
driveway should be as flat as possible. If you don't do this
you make it real easy to hit the fabric when laying down the
ABC. You DON'T want to do this. PITA! I did it too many
times to count. GRRRRRRRRRRR....

The first 200-250 feet of the my drive was pretty flat and
smooth. The last bit was not. It was full of little roots and
rocks. I graded it the best I can but that area is a rock
garden and the more I graded the more rock I found. So I
just put down the fabric and tried to be as careful as
possible when moving the ABC.

The fabric keeps mud from pushing up into your driveway
material or it keeps the gravel from being pushed into the
mud. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Depending on how you look at it. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I
think the fabric also help distribute the vehicle load over a
greater area.

One day I had something like 6-8 load delivered. It was
pouring rain in the morning and I was afraid we would get
rained out. The rain ended by the time the trucks started
delivering but the ground was saturated. By the end of the
day they had pushed the gravel in the private road down in
the mud. The ABC I was putting down on top of the fabric
was just fine. I had parked my truck off the road and ended
up standing in mud. Twas dry the day before but it was a
muddy mess after the rain. I dropped a bucket full of ABC
and smoothed it out near my truck so I was not standing
in mud. By the end of the day much of that ABC was pushed
into the mud just by me parking my tractor. The supplier, who
rent equipment and does his own site clearing, driveway
building, etc. loves the fabric. We have had a few discussions
on TBN as well. From what I see the stuff just works.

If you search the Internet you might find some more info
on the fabric as well. I think Amacco(sp), the oil company
makes the fabric.

About 6 years ago I put a gravel parking area next to my
driveway at my house. I did not know about geotextile fabric
but I did use the black woven fabric to keep out weeds. I
put this stuff down and put gravel over it. I did not use the
right gravel since it did not have any fines so it did not
harden up. But the weed fabric has held up to 6 years of
parking 6500-7700 pound trucks. The gravel has not been
pushed into the mud.

I don't think I'll have to mess with my drive ever again. I
think I might have to touch it with the box blade every once
in awhile to top dress it but I'm not going to have to box
blade the the drive every six months like I need to do with
our private road.

I figured it would cost about 28 cents per square foot. That
included fabric and spreading ABC at a rate of one load over
a 60 feet by 12.5 feet area. For 5,000 sf that was 1,400
dollars. I figured I would spend 3,000 to 4,000 dollars
depending on how I actually did things. I'm closer to 4K than
3K. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif But that is the way it always works for me. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Hope this helps...
Dan

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Dan,

Could you help me with the math on this? I'm looking at doing the same thing, but have no idea how much ABC material I will need. By the way - what is "ABC"?

If a cubic yard of ABC weighs 3000 lbs, that would mean that a 16 ton load would have about 11 cubic yards.
60' x 12.5' x 4" = 250 cubic feet = 28 cubic yards.
How can 11 cubic yards of material become 28 cubic yards of road?/w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif

Is my calculation off, or is there another factor I'm missing?

 

[MJB]

250 cubic feet equals 9.26 cubic yards. There are 27 cubic feet per cubic yard. Around here ABC is called "Crusher run" or "Driveway mix".

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Yup, I was missing something.
3 x 3 x 3!/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif

Thanks

 

[dmccarty]

Bill,

60*12.58*.33 = 247.5 cubic feet.

247.5/27 = 9.16 yards.

ABC is the name/specification of the stone. I had a print out
that described ABC but it was kinda over my head. Basically
its a bunch of very fine dust mixed with angular stone up to
2 inchs long. It all binds togather real nice when wetted
down. I think Crush and Run is a bit different but you hear
people say they are the same thing. I'll have to see if I can
dig up that piece of paper....

Later,
Dan

 

[MarkV]

Mark,

I could be wrong because things differ so much with different soil types but if your drive has been in for 15 years I don’t think you need to strip it by 3 or 4 inches. It would seem to me that you already have a base, unless things get real soupy when wet, and need the 4 inches of top coating. Dan did his new drive exactly the way I would on a new drive and I believe the fabric will save him a great deal of gravel in the future by keeping the dirt out. You add enough gravel over the years and you end up with a base that does about the same thing. Once the base is established grade smooth with a crown and topcoat with crusher run (ABC) every few years. This sure seems to work for us but I know I would have saved a lot of money on gravel if I had knowen about the road fabric when we built the road.

MarkV

 

[dmccarty]

MDL,

MarkV is hitting on something that I should have caught
when I answered your question about the cost of gravel.

The private road I partially own and maintain just has gravel.
Some of it has held up well and some has not. What I do
every six months or so is to take the box blade, lower the
teeth and rip the heck out of the road. Then I put the teeth
up and smooth it back down. You don't want to do this when
its dry or you will get dirty as can be plus you loose the fines
that hold the road togather. The gravel is being pushed into
the roadbed and all I'm doing is bringing it back up.

I should not have to do this with my driveway since the fabric
keeps the stone and mud apart.

Soooo, you might want to just rib your driveway up with the
teeth on a box blade and then smooth it all out. You might
not need anymore gravel out all.....

I found my piece of paper defining ABC. I thought it defined
Crush and Run but it does not. I thought I saw a specification
chart somewhere that showed Crush and Run as well as ABC
being slightly different. But I can't find it.

Any hoo, ABC is comprised of material that fits through a
screen. Its given as a percentage of weight.
100% of 1.5 inch stone. 75-100% 1 inch stone. 55-90%
.5 inch stone. 35-55% #4 stone. 25-45% #10 stone.
14-30% #40 stone and 4-12% #200 stone.

Does that help? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I THINK I understand all that but
I'm still scatching my chigger bit head..... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later,
Dan