Building a road... whoulda thunk it'd be this hard?

[theboman]

Springs are a pain in the butt when building a road, house or what have you.

Culverts where the springs are tricky. My old place we had a single wide and we had a spring that ran directly under where we set it up. The equipment operator suggested what has worked before in our area. He found a spot where the spring was obvious (poked his finger in the ground and up bubbled water and it went from muddy to clean in seconds) and dug a nice sized hole with his excavator (so, you'd do this upstream, spring, from where the roads begins, and filled it with limestone (#2 I believe was the size). After he got 3-4' of limestone in the ground he had me get a 100' roll of perforated pipe and dug a ditch about 42" wide and 4' deep for 40-45'. We put down 1-2' of limestone in the ditch and then the TWO runs of the 4' pipe, the covered with the rest of the limestone, then the dirt and we never had a problem with the spring again. I'm guessing where the hole was dug to where it ended had dirt from 6' to 3' to the end of the slope, maybe more. BTW he had a big excavator digging then a dozer etc running all over the place and never an issue in 4-5 years.

I ain't gonna say it'll work in your case, but it worked for us. LOTS of clay and sandstone where we had this done.

 

[MarkV]

Given that you are building what I call a tractor trail or hiking trail this is a cheap trick that works in muddy clay. In your areas that will not dry out cut 6" +/- trees into 8' lengths and lay them side by side perpendicular to the trail. When covered with soil they will distribute the weight and keep you from sinking into the mud. Loggers have built logging roads this way for many years. Because the wood is covered with soil it does not rot away, no oxygen, the way you might think. Also for the little amount of water the springs are weeping you can use 6 or 8" PVC as culverts in with your wood matting. Much cheaper than 12" culvert pipe. Stone, unless you have it on the property, and geotex fabric is to expensive for a tractor trail.

MarkV

 

[chipsndust]

Given that you are building what I call a tractor trail or hiking trail this is a cheap trick that works in muddy clay. In your areas that will not dry out cut 6" +/- trees into 8' lengths and lay them side by side perpendicular to the trail. When covered with soil they will distribute the weight and keep you from sinking into the mud. Loggers have built logging roads this way for many years. Because the wood is covered with soil it does not rot away, no oxygen, the way you might think. Also for the little amount of water the springs are weeping you can use 6 or 8" PVC as culverts in with your wood matting. Much cheaper than 12" culvert pipe. Stone, unless you have it on the property, and geotex fabric is to expensive for a tractor trail.

MarkV

MarkV:
This road is built similar to your description. It's about 80 yards across a swamp. I put the logs in, covered with field stone, then covered the stone with dirt.

I also have some shorter sections of road where I used just logs, as you described. The log roads (we call them corduroy) will last for generations, but they would be tough to ride a bicycle over.

 

[radioman]

chipsndust. I love what you have done. It seems like a great idea with the logs. The only thing I would suggest for OP if he wants to follow that idea is after the logs are laid down and there is at least 2 inches of dirt on top of logs, he should add throwaway carpet on top. then add more dirt to cover the carpet to the final desired height. Perhaps this would give a more stable way to hold the dry dirt on top.

 

[charlz]

This might help to if you just want to build bike trails:

Wetland Trail Design and Construction, 0123-2833-MTDC, Table of Contents

 

[MarkV]

MarkV:
This road is built similar to your description. It's about 80 yards across a swamp. I put the logs in, covered with field stone, then covered the stone with dirt.

I also have some shorter sections of road where I used just logs, as you described. The log roads (we call them corduroy) will last for generations, but they would be tough to ride a bicycle over.

Chipndust shows a perfect example of what I was talking about. Great job by the way. In my case I wasn't near as wet as his swamp, just clay mud like the OP's that would not dry out. The logs plus 8-12" of soil and it is as smooth as any of the other trails on the property, also stays dry.

MarkV

 

[brin]

You have already put down so much gravel but I have put in two roads on my farm through woods such as yours and on both I ran into water problems, I too finally had to lose all of the #4 gravel ( big as your fist as you say) I had a friend who had a friend who built roads and he came out and said...you need dirt and he told me to build up the low lying areas of the road with dirt and put a crown on the road ( higher in the middle - sloping to the sides ) and then put the gravel back down. I did just that and it worked fine in both cases. The bottom line is I had to build the road up higher than the rest of the property after I put in the culverts like you did.

 

[JohninCT]

My land was soggy in areas until we cut down some of the trees and opened it up some. This seemed to help dry it up some. If you have running water, you will have to direct it. The middle to last part of your trail didn't look too bad. It looks like you really have only the first half which is the real problem. You already made great progress!

The trail construction manual that Charlz posted was pretty interesting (thanks Charlz!). Maybe you could use a combination of the corduroy and turnpike construction methods. Digging drainage ditches down the sides of your path will channel the water away from your trail and connect into your culverts/drainage that you've already installed. Use trees that you cut down to use as treads on the path. You might need to rent the small excavator again to dig the ditches, but if you gather up a supply of logs and plan the routing of the ditches you might be able to get it done with a weekend rental.

 

[rambler]

Neat pics and explination of what you are working with.

Will you allow me a bit of soapbox? Where I farm, you need all sorts of permits to put in any drainage, and would _never_ be allowed to put in drainage in the wetlands you show. I'd be required to buy 2x as much reconstructed wetlands, or return the stuff I changed back to what it was. I'd about be thrown in jail for that sort of work.

I'm trying to feed the world, and you are building a bike trail. Guess we see what is important to the world....

You mention you are connecting to a 'farm road' behind your property. For the kids to bike on.... Who owns that road, is it public? Do farmers use it a lot with big ag machinery? Is it hilly or winding? I'd hate to see you setting up a tradgedy in the making. Farm implements don't have the best visibility, and kids don't make the best choices for how to behave on public roads sometimes.... As a farmer, you are setting up something I always cringe about - town folk don't quite understand farming & how machines work & how we need to travel and how poor the visibility really is on those machines..... And you really shouldn't be hooking up to a provate road without permission, if that is what it is. Just saying.....


Road building in clay wet soils is a challenge. You need to build up - get a foot higher than the ground around the road bed. Your dozer blade made more of a trench. You eed to go the other way, build a road bed up, with a crown. Any low spots, you need to get the water to cross under the road with culverts as you did. Will take a little time for the mounded clay to dry out, but then it will be an ok roadbed. Put some gravel on top of that, & it will be good for what you are doing. But you need to build up.

Wet pockets might not be springs, but just small tiny ponds - where the soil moisture meets the surface of the soil. Hard to drain those, is ther is no fall. You could trench in 4 inch perferated tile, and run it downhill towards the pond to get the water to drain away - but that is a very severe offence in my state to drain a wetland. Thought Ohio was also pretty harsh on that sort of thing. I just put in 4000 feet of tile in a 15 acre field - was lucky & got the permit. I know a little about clay & lot of rainfall & wetter areas.

You need to build your roadbed up taller. Then the water will stay down out of it, and the dry layer will carry the load. In real wet areas, you need to get higher, so the dry layer can set up better, stay drier. In some areas you can build road ditches down both sides. But you need to create an elevation difference, for the water to stay lower, for the roadbed to be up higher and dry out.

--->Paul

 

[brin]

You know Paul..I just can't help myself - I have to respond...People buy land not just to farm but to enjoy - ride horses, walk in the woods, hunt, ride ATV's with their kids - not everyone buys land just to farm and further I have to say that I would sell my farm before I ever let the government tell me where I could build a road on my own property...don't you think the government especially lately is sticking their nose a little too far up our skirts? Just saying.............