What implement to maintain gravel driveway?

[djradz]

Once your drive is in decent shape, I think the ideal tool to MAINTAIN a gravel or stone drive is a landscape rake, equiped with gage wheels. If you've got some pretty deep ruts, the box blade with the scarifiers down will help bust up the top and redistribute the gravel. Otherwise, I think you may find the rear blade handier for other projects besides the drive. If you only had one implement to buy, for maintaining the drive, I'd get the rake and rent a blade or box for the initial prep.

On a related note, if your base is pretty good already, you may wish to get a load of crushed stone, rather than gravel, come next spring. Spread the existing gravel and fill in the ruts and potholes and then apply about 2" of the stone on top. Crushed stone, about 3/4" - 1-1/4" will keep your drive in excellent condition almost indefineately. With just gravel, after almost every heavy rain, you'll need to do some work.

 

[DirtRodder]

We have an all gravel drive way about 1200 feet long and much of it’s steep, up to a 22% grade. It constantly requires smoothing do to tire hop wash boarding (and Oregon rain). I too use a box blade and have side plates to set its depth. But I find the best maintenance tool for me is a grader blade turned around backwards. It won’t dig in and does a good job of redistributing the gravel. You can still tilt or angle it to drag the gravel to those areas that need it.
I don’t think I could get along very well with just a grader blade or just a box blade because they both have so many uses, then toss in a homemade chain link drag and your set.

 

[HomeBrew2]

You've provided some good tips on working/building a crown!
The original poster didn't seem to have mentioned a crown situation and, I live in sunny Kalifornia ... on a good year i get 20" of rain. .: I, thus far, have no need for crowning roads. I rely, successfully, on sheet flow.
When I need to grade a crown, or such, I'll add gauge wheels to by back blade. ... aside from hogging a bunch of dirt out, a dirt moving implement without gauge wheels is only worth the going price of scrap to me. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
Cheers!

 

[Slamfire]

Everyone talks about crowning as if a high spot in the center of the road was an ideal situation. It isn't always, you have to match the natural drainage. If you crown a road in the middle, you'll end up with places where water can't drain away from the high side of the natural slope. Then you'll have standing water in one wheel track. Please don't ask how I learned this. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[Farmwithjunk]

That's been my finding too. I don't need "crown", and don't want it. In fact, my road gets a center ridge that I need to keep graded out. Our area topography is hills, more hills, and STEEP hills. Drainage has never been an issue.

 

[HobbleCreek]

A very good point.

Love the True Grit reference.

 

[Highbeam]

I need a crown. Well I don't need a crown so much as I need positive drainage to get all the surface water off of the road. With little to no longitudinal slope I have to rely on the cross slope to get the water off. The underlying soil is heavy clay and will become very unstable pudge without adequate surface drainage. It is totally acceptable to use a slope all the way across the road but then you're always driving on a tilt and your whiskey might spill. The superelevated roadway would be the ticket on a corner so that you can act like a race car driver.

The next question is do you slope the dirt and then the gravel or can you build a crowned gravel road on top of a flat subgrade?

 

[BobReeves]

My thoughts are that water will travel through gravel so a gravel crown won't do much.

 

[BigAl]

You want to have the sub base crowned too . I was in road building for years and we installed many private gravel roads. The number one killer of a gravel /dirt road is "Water". PERIOD ! If it can lay on the roadway surface long enough, it will start to deteriate the road .Proper drainage is critical .
Another trick to prolong a gravel roads life is to compact it with a small roller if you have access to one . After you have established proper crown and drainage roll the newly graded gravel as a final step . Makes it last twice as long . One more step is to try and avoid use of river type rock on grades and use angual (mine rock ) instead . The river rock has a habit of rolling out much quicker and causing wheel ruts or pot holes . And lastly, the proper way to rid yourself of a pothole so it will not redevalope is to completely cut it out with your blade and redistribute the gravel in layers ,compacted as you go .
Big Al

 

[3RRL]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( After dealing with a gravel driveway for the last 24 years, I FINALLY have a paved drive. That's the #1 way to deal with a drive IMHO. )</font>

Hey FWJ, You're talkin' less seat time! We need every excuse to be on that tractor. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif I made my investment into the tractor instead of the road. Now I HAVE to use it keep my dirt road ship-shape and have fun doing it.

Also, paving tends to get pretty expensive I found out, at least out may way. My road is graded so there are no slopes exceeding 15% grade. The county I live in would then require a paved road. That made the road a lot longer, but also allowed it to "open up" the rest of my property. I also have turnouts every 400' in case a firetruck or ambulance comes in, so I get to spend even more time maintaining them too.

Best of all, my wife thinks I'm doing a good job of it so she doesn't complain about it. I always take along my Browning side by side during quail and dove seasons. Got lucky last time out clearing some turnouts and brought lunch home. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I personally use a boxblade and a top & tilt and go real slow so the grade turns out very smooth.