Driveway Thru The Woods, Living With, Costs And Other Questions

[SnowRidge]

I am looking for rough costs and other advice on having a gravel drive punched through the woods. We have managed to pick up a nice piece of property here in E. Tennessee and plan to build a new home there. We are currently trying to decide exactly where to locate the home site. It potentially could be as far as 1,500 feet from the road.

The property is rolling and wooded with mixed natural regrowth after being logged about 30 years ago in some places, and 15 - 20 year old ex pasture in others. In other words, small to large trees of various species with a significant understory, but nothing really huge. There appears to be little if any marketable timber.

Before I talk to any driveway builders, I would like to be a little more educated about gravel drives in the woods, of which I know little. For example, how wide should the graveled portion of the drive be? How wide should the treeless area be? What issues do folks who have a home set back in the woods face with delivery trucks, etc., and what should be kept in mind when laying out the drive?

I expect the power line will have to follow the drive. I am sure the power company will require at least a 20 foot right of way, half of which could be part of the drive.

What kind of contractor with what kind of equipment, knowledge, and expertise? A neighbor is suggesting a certain excavator, but that doesn't necessarily sound like the right kind of contractor to me.

And what kind of costs should I expect? I realize this one is difficult due to the many differing regional factors, but I would like to get some sort of handle on them before I talk to potential contractors.

Thanks to any and all who can provide advice.

 

[Jimbrown]

Well my advice may not be aplicable in any manner. Az ain't TN. But when I built 3 years ago I had the same type of questions. We have what we simply call dirt guys. They have backhoes, graders, trucks, what ever. I had the same guy that leveled my house pad and cleared the house area 2 AC blade the drive with a grader. I had mine done in an s type serpitine not a straight drive that look like an interstate. The power guys will make their own rules and around here it is as straight line as they can make so the power went a different route than the drive. I had to dig the trench but they told me exactly where and how deep. 30 ft wide is the standard here. With about 15 ft graveled althought We don't need gravel and I do not have any the desert is plenty hard for drives. Clearing 2 ac, leveling the house site, 800ft of drive, and the septic system all done by the same guy was $11,000.

 

[BubbaJr]

We bought 23 acres back in 2001, and built our house finishing it in Mar. 2002. I marked out the drive through the woods, cut down the trees, and removed the brush. When we had the excavator there digging the basement, I had him run it through the driveway and pull up all the stumps that were too big for my tractor to handle. I asked him how much extra for the work (about 30 minutes), and he said he gets $85 an hour. I thought that was reasonable, so I had him do it and gave him the full hours pay. Since he was already there I didn't have to pay the extra costs of him coming to the job site.

Then I took my boxblade and FEL and cut through the soil until I got down to hard clay. Then I had #2 gravel (about fist sized rocks) delivered followed by lots of #411 (1 1/2" down to fines) to a depth of about 6-8". That has proved to be a very stable drive. The only problems I have had come from scraping snow in the winter and then having to clean the gravel out of the grass in the spring.

At the time the gravel was running about $100 a truck load, the tractor and the FEL and the boxblade ran about $21K, + the $85 for the stump removal. The bonus is that I still have the tractor and with over 960 hours on it I think I have amortized the driveway down to less than a thousand dollars by now.

The only advice I can give you on setting up the drive is to make the curves as gentle as possible so the trucks pulling trailers can make the curves. Also make sure you get the heavy rocks (#2's ) down before the heavy trucks come through the drive. That will firm up the drive so the concrete trucks can make it without getting stuck. Oh and you can count on it raining enough during construction to turn the driveway into a mud pit several times, so don't skimp on the #2's. By the way different parts of the country call their gravel by different numbers so you may hear all kinds of gravel types that mean the same thing.

Best of luck to you, and don't get discouraged when the plumbers show up several days late and the electrician moves away before the job is done, and the chimney guy they send is on his first job by himself and you almost burn your new house down before you find out he didn't know what he was doing, and they piddle around too long to pour the concrete in the barn and you have to wait 4 months for the ground to thaw out before they can pour so you can park your tractor in the barn. It's the little things like that that make you stronger so you can endure a week without electric after the ice storm of the century.

Would I do it over again, maybe!

 

[BarryinMN]

The Fire Dept may have specific road access requirements: curve radius, grades, turnouts every x feet (allows 2 way traffic) if the access is over x feet long, turn around space at the end, etc.

I routed my power underground in a road way. Overhead requires 50' clearcut easement.

Highway access apron construction will have requirements as well: sight lines, drainage, etc. State wants more space, County DOT here is very helpful & will advise drainage, materials for construction, expedite permits if needed, etc. (I have 2 access roads one county & one state.)

Access requirements may be detailed when the house permit is pulled.

Wise move to know what is needed & not leave it up to a contractor. The VFD here is not required to fight house fires when access is not acceptable. (They could get stuck in the mud, block roads, uable to get to a second location, etc.

 

[MossRoad]

New land is always exciting!

I put a 400' driveway into our property around 1990. I had an estimate of $5000 to make the cut into the side of the road, level it all out, remove the trees, and leave 6" of gravel. I bought a used tractor/loader for $5000, put the drive in myself and used the machine to mow the property for 10 years, then sold it for $1600. I was lucky to find a pocket of gravel right where the state said I had to make the road cut, and used that to lay down 6" of base. I trucked in 5 tri-axle dump truck loads of slag from the steel mills and put that on top of the gravel. Gravel will get pushed out of the roadway by tires unless it is crushed gravel. You want something that will lock together. The slag fit the bill and is available here. It may not be where you are, but is worth checking into.

I would suggest getting a soil map of your property from your local county extension agent. They have them and they will show all of the soil types on your property. It may show you a pocket of gravel or a pool of muck that you may not have noticed. It could be useful while you are locating the drive and show you places to avoid.

If you are going to build anytime soon, as others have suggested, just have the same excavator that is putting in the house foundation do the drive. You will probably get a good price from them, since they will already be out there. It may also be a good idea to mark any unwanted trees and have them popped out with the excavator at this time. You'll probably need an are cleared for well drilling equipment, too, so consider that as well.

You should also check into drainage issues. My soil is all sand and I have no drainage issues. You may want to put some sort of geotextile fabric under your gravel to help keep it from sinking into the soil below. You may need culverts and a drainage channel along the drive. Just remember that if you get snow, someone, someday, will drive off the side of your drive and into the channel, no matter how wide the drive is. It just happens. So try to get any drainage channels off, away from the drive and out into the woods or landscaping. My father always put them 10 - 20 feet off the drives and filled them with english ivy. He'd run the culverts underground to them. You hardly noticed the channels until large rains would come. Then you were glad they were there.

As for electric lines there are several ways you can go. One is to run lines on poles to the house location, then put in a transformer on the last pole. A second way is to bury high voltage lines back to the house site, then put in a transformer on the ground. You see lots of these in subdivisions. Around here, anything past the property line is mine and they have no right of way. It is my responsibility to keep the lines clear of limbs, etc... so if I need to trim in the lines or dig near the buried stuff, I have to have the power company come out and disconnect the power at the pole by the road while I trim it. It doesn't cost anything, but is an inconvenience. You should check with your local power company to see what their rules are.

 

[TedLaRue]

SnowRidge,

I bought a book which provides cost estimates for various building projects. In the preface to that book, it warns that an estimate from a book means nothing compared to a local price quote. Still, it's nice to hear a few estimates so you don't get shocked with the actual quote.

All of the experiences described in the previous posts should provide some insight to your situation. But to summarize, find a good local contractor. Requirements and prices vary with location.

I have a driveway similar in length to your potential length. I'm not sure of your terrain, but I think you have some slopes.

Drainage should be your first concern. Drainage through a wooded area has the additional problem of leaves and twigs. Twigs fall into your ditch, leaves build up behind it, and you've got a drainage problem. If your power line requires additional right-of-way width to your cleared driveway area, you might want it to be on the uphill side to minimize debris in your drainage ditch. If you have culverts carrying drainage across under your driveway, don't skimp on size. Larger pipe will pass more debris. 12" is a minimum.

You can estimate your needs for cubic yards of gravel using this formula:
cu. yds. = width(ft) x thickness(in) x length(ft) / 324

 

[SnowRidge]

Very good point on checking with the VFD. I had not thought of that.

I was just informed by the electric utility that they require a 30' ROW, and they mentioned that they just quoted $10,000 for a new home 1,800 from the road for overhead. That ten grand does not include clearing the ROW. The customer has to do that.

He also said, "If you want underground, you better be sitting down."

 

[MarkV]

If there is county water in the area and you plan to use it check with them on costs also. It has gotten real high in my area. Ten thousand to run the power line sure does seem high. Are they going to have to put a transformer in?

MarkV

 

[MossRoad]

Very good point on checking with the VFD. I had not thought of that.

I was just informed by the electric utility that they require a 30' ROW, and they mentioned that they just quoted $10,000 for a new home 1,800 from the road for overhead. That ten grand does not include clearing the ROW. The customer has to do that.

He also said, "If you want underground, you better be sitting down."

When I had the electric company quote mine back in the early 90' it was almost $3000 for the 400' run if I went with poles and a transformer, so that does not seem all that bad of a price 15 years later. The electric company had a deal that you could pay it off over 2 years, so that was $1500 a year, or a little over a hundred a month. The nice thing was, if your payment was $150 a month, you could use up to $150 worth of electricity each month and not be charged for it. If you used more, they just added it to your bill. You might want to check into payment plans with your utility.

 

[ponytug]

One minor comment on underground power. While overhead power has a 50 year lifetime, underground generally has a 20-30 year lifetime. If you plan to be there when it is expiring, you might think about putting it in conduit to make it easier to replace the cables- which rot out underground.

BUT this depends upon who ends up owning the cable.

Think about where you want your meter, and whether you want power out by the road for lights, gates, etc. It might change your view on where you want to route the power.

In some parts of the country, having it out of the way of lightning pays for itself instantantly. YMMV.

BTW, if your soil is light enough, i.e. sandy, you might be able to lay the cable by pulling it with a bulldozer with a cable puller. (It looks like a subsoil ripper, but it has an attachment point for cable, and typically an elarged tip.

Good luck!

Very good point on checking with the VFD. I had not thought of that.

I was just informed by the electric utility that they require a 30' ROW, and they mentioned that they just quoted $10,000 for a new home 1,800 from the road for overhead. That ten grand does not include clearing the ROW. The customer has to do that.

He also said, "If you want underground, you better be sitting down."