Piston
Elite Member
I have a roughly 800' driveway to put in for our future home. The land was logged in the '70's and left unmaintained since then. There are a lot of pines as you can see from the pics, and some hardwoods. most trees are small, barely sawlogs. Many of the hardwoods are just saplings (small to large) so there is a good mix of trees in there but nothing overly large.
From the reading I've done on this forum, I've come up with a basic plan.
Design a driveway that takes advantage of the natural openings in the land, although there aren't too many 'openings' just some areas with less trees.
Go in with a backhoe and knock down all the trees that are in my future driveway, uprooting them in the process, then pile them off to the side....I plan on cutting the stumps off, limbing them, and saving any decent pines for my portable sawmill, and saving any hardwoods over 4" for firewood.
I'm not sure yet if I will have the brush mulched, or if I will burn it.
Then go though with my 46hp tractor and boxblade, with the scarifiers all the way down, and loosen up the soil down to 5" (the lowest my scarifiers go).
THEN, come back with the backhoe and dig up that 5" of top soil for the whole length of the driveway.
After that, I'll see if the remaining soil looks more like gravel, or more like soft organic topsoil still, and if it's still topsoil, I'll repeat loosening the soil down another few inches, and remove more soil again.
From there, I guess I'm not really sure what to do. Is there any chance that I could get lucky by digging out the topsoil and be left with decent gravel? And not have to add more gravel to the driveway?
I was thinking of instead of making a crown in the driveway to shed water, I would put a 4% slope in the entire driveway, following the natural contour of the land and have the water shed down the side of the driveway, which would be to the north in the pic. (north up)
What do you think of this plan? My equipment is what is listed in my signature.
How long do you think it would take to put in a rough driveway like this? 2 days, a week, 2 weeks? or longer?
If I have to add a bunch of gravel to the driveway when I'm done, I plan on putting down geotextile fabric first, and laying down the gravel over that.
The driveway will be approximately 800-850 feet long. I put in 10' contours on the map, there is a block with 2' contours where the house will be.
I'm looking for opinions or advice and tips from all you pros to make my job a little easier. I've put two different driveway routes on the map, The blue one will have slightly more elevation change but will go past some interesting features in the land, and also be easier since the woods are a lot thinner there.
The red one will be less elevation change, straighter, but doesn't seem 'natural' with the land, because I will have to take out so many pines.
I have a lot of time on my hands and want to do the driveway rough work myself, I don't mind getting help when I need it and if that is the case I will rethink my plan, but I want to take advantage of the equipment I have, and improve my skills using that equipment.
The land is in the lakes region of NH where we get a decent amount of snow. It is on the north side of a mountain but not so far down to where I won't get sun in the winter. It just won't be beating on the driveway.
From the reading I've done on this forum, I've come up with a basic plan.
Design a driveway that takes advantage of the natural openings in the land, although there aren't too many 'openings' just some areas with less trees.
Go in with a backhoe and knock down all the trees that are in my future driveway, uprooting them in the process, then pile them off to the side....I plan on cutting the stumps off, limbing them, and saving any decent pines for my portable sawmill, and saving any hardwoods over 4" for firewood.
I'm not sure yet if I will have the brush mulched, or if I will burn it.
Then go though with my 46hp tractor and boxblade, with the scarifiers all the way down, and loosen up the soil down to 5" (the lowest my scarifiers go).
THEN, come back with the backhoe and dig up that 5" of top soil for the whole length of the driveway.
After that, I'll see if the remaining soil looks more like gravel, or more like soft organic topsoil still, and if it's still topsoil, I'll repeat loosening the soil down another few inches, and remove more soil again.
From there, I guess I'm not really sure what to do. Is there any chance that I could get lucky by digging out the topsoil and be left with decent gravel? And not have to add more gravel to the driveway?
I was thinking of instead of making a crown in the driveway to shed water, I would put a 4% slope in the entire driveway, following the natural contour of the land and have the water shed down the side of the driveway, which would be to the north in the pic. (north up)
What do you think of this plan? My equipment is what is listed in my signature.
How long do you think it would take to put in a rough driveway like this? 2 days, a week, 2 weeks? or longer?
If I have to add a bunch of gravel to the driveway when I'm done, I plan on putting down geotextile fabric first, and laying down the gravel over that.
The driveway will be approximately 800-850 feet long. I put in 10' contours on the map, there is a block with 2' contours where the house will be.
I'm looking for opinions or advice and tips from all you pros to make my job a little easier. I've put two different driveway routes on the map, The blue one will have slightly more elevation change but will go past some interesting features in the land, and also be easier since the woods are a lot thinner there.
The red one will be less elevation change, straighter, but doesn't seem 'natural' with the land, because I will have to take out so many pines.
I have a lot of time on my hands and want to do the driveway rough work myself, I don't mind getting help when I need it and if that is the case I will rethink my plan, but I want to take advantage of the equipment I have, and improve my skills using that equipment.
The land is in the lakes region of NH where we get a decent amount of snow. It is on the north side of a mountain but not so far down to where I won't get sun in the winter. It just won't be beating on the driveway.