Rainwater washing out my NEW road

[boggen]

Boggen the way I read it from the OP was, the buyer,him, was in for 5K and the developer was to provide an "all weather road". I think the question will become 'what is an all weather road'. There is even a good deal of disagreement in this discussion as to what that means.

MarkV

i agree with ya. last thread was an attempt to put a different view on things. everyone else has nailed things down this way or that away. and an attempt to help him connect the dots together.

all weather road to me is. a road i do not have to re-grade and maintain each time it rains. and will last through a some rains and some heavy down pours. were i will not get stuck. or require a 4x4 and risking a good chance of being stuck. other words maintenance should be down to every couple months. exception initial couple years. as ground settling occurs and needing to fill in spots and take some high spots out. and other exception is spring time (wet season for a given area) when snow melts and more of the ground is wetter for longer period of times. road should hold up. without visable washouts that will increasingly get bigger. and make it impossible to pass over.

rutting should be kept down to min. but some ruts i would say could pass as an all weather road. ((old dirt roads out in the country for example)) a 2 wheel drive car should be able to drive the road without any great chance of getting stuck with exception of getting out onto the shoulder / near the ditch and getting into the mud.

a bad corner or bad hill or low spots, or not wide enough areas, or spots were water collects. are always bad spots for getting stuck and a lot of rutting to occur. and road crews come fix areas once it all dry's out enough. but until it dries out. you should still be able to use a standard 2 wheel drive car and make it through the area.

a 4x4 vehicle for folks living out in the country on old dirt roads around here, is almost a requirement, due to things do happen, and maintenance is not done as needed. or is, but big storms and like. take things out. but over all use, 2 wheel vehicle is still use able.

"all weather road/driveway" it doesn't mean there has to be rock on the road, it could just be dirt, or it could be concrete or asphalt or other.

high maintenance doesn't mean. re grading the area every time it rains. or every couple rains. it means if ya don't keep up with maintenance, keep ditches mowed and keep ditches from washing out. keep culverts unplugged, add little bit of rock here and there for ruts that start happening over a longer period of time. keep crowns or slopes within the driveway correct so water run off is maintained and achieved as the road / driveway is used.

all weather road to me, doesn't mean your vehicle will not get dirty. and in fact it may get covered in complete mud and/or dust.

if road/driveway was designed to be partially dirt. then the dirt should hold up from any sort of major rutting.

""all weather road"" should not need any changes to it, through out the seasons to keep it drivable. example having a bunch more rock hauled in. due to all the previous rock sunk into the dirt and now major rutting occurs. exception over a couple years or more, more rock is hauled in to replenish the top coat of gravel.

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to me above would describe "all weather road/driveway" anything less than that. would be a farm lane, that is used during planting and harvesting to get back to a field. or a road way that is only used when things are dry.

and since dealing with water being major culprit of things, and culverts and ditches are used to fix these situations majorty of time. they are almost a requirement, i say almost, there is always those exceptions.

 

[CurlyDave]

Dave, glad that you were able to do this with your drive.:thumbsup::thumbsup: Curious though, would you have done it if your road was 4-5,000 feet long?

No, I wouldn't have done it if the driveway was 4-5000 feet long. I would have passed on that property.

In my case, I had some idea what the driveway would cost ahead of time, and that was a factor in what we paid for the land.

The seller of my land had subdivided it in a manner similar to what has been described by the OP, but my seller, stepped up and put in an asphalt road for access to all the parcels. This was initially costly, but allowed him to sell parcels with paved access.

Spread across 5 or six parcels 3000' of asphalt road is a lot easier to swallow than one parcel bearing the entire burden.

 

[dcyrilc]

Until last summer when I started doing some rescraping, these roads have had no maintainance in 8 years. No money and no equipment.

Now that I have a tractor I am starting to do some maintainance again, but there has been no issues with driving a 2WD vehicle on them throughout the rainy season. To me, this is an all weather road. My road is in disrepair, but it is sound and usable even after 8 years of neglect. This is the difference that having a solid base makes. For the last two winters, I have had water 8" wide and 1/2" deep running 24/7 down one of the wheel tracks and there has been no loss of usability because of it.

It will be getting a major overhaul this sumer though.

 

[CurlyDave]

For what its worth, it turns out that there is a "standard" definition of an all weather road.

From the FHA Inspection Checklist: "FHA defines all-weather surface as a road surface over which emergency Vehicles can pass in all types of weather."

Not a lot to go on, and it completely leaves out maintenance, but I bet that any court in the US would accept the FHA definition of an all weather road.

Looking at the washouts and mud, I don't think the existing road would pass, but I could be wrong.

 

[beppington]

i agree with ya. last thread was an attempt to put a different view on things. everyone else has nailed things down this way or that away. and an attempt to help him connect the dots together.

all weather road to me is. a road i do not have to re-grade and maintain each time it rains. and will last through a some rains and some heavy down pours. ...

You may have "all weather road" narrowed down a little, but what's the definition of "some" in this case? Sorry, I'm just typing like a lawyer :laughing:

 

[mjncad]

Curly's find of what FHA considers an all weather road is better; but still vague. I think Boeing would be wise to educate himself on various road construction techniques for his state; hence my earlier suggestion to check his state's DOT to see if they have drawings and/or specs that he can use to defend his position. Heck, if nothing else, he could check his county's engineering department and/or local fire department for their input as they would be dealing with seldom used roads similar to the OP's.

 

[gunnner]

New member here & I'm finding a lot of good info on Tractor By Net---
This link from tommu56 very interesting as I maintain 1 mile of gravel road, some of which is rather steep. The cost is shared by about 10 property owners--Ive been doing this for 15 years ( the hardest part is collecting $ from them :laughing.

The Link>>>>>>>>>( from page 1 )

A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads - Introduction

Thanks

 

[bearmtnmartin]

I read this thread with interest. I am not a hobby farmer or a small acreage owner. Well, I am, but mostly I am an excavation contractor. Whenever I have a problem with a customer, I start throwing resources at it until it goes away. I don't care if it was my fault, my mistake, my omission, someone elses fault, or a disgruntled client trying to save money or reduce costs. I just get in there and fix the problem. Maybe that is just me, but I have a sterling reputation and I am the busiest contractor I know. You need to make every customer a happy one, even if he is happy because he thinks he just screwed over a dumb contractor.

Part of the reason I go this route is because when you have equipment, and the ability to run it yourself, you can go back and do more work for very little hard money. I look at those photos and all I see is a few hours of machine time and a couple of 200 dollar culverts. You could argue that the crush is spread a little thin, but after the drainage issues are resolved, it is probably not a show stopper, and a good operator could easily spread what is there to improve the coverage. The guy should just come back and do it, regardless of any contract language or verbal agreement. With a summer to settle everything down, and a good crown on the road, you would have a decent muddy all weather road. Of course when you start building, the gravel trucks and mixer trucks will beat that road into a quagmire, but that will be a new problem for a new contractor.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I read this thread with interest. I am not a hobby farmer or a small acreage owner. Well, I am, but mostly I am an excavation contractor. Whenever I have a problem with a customer, I start throwing resources at it until it goes away. I don't care if it was my fault, my mistake, my omission, someone elses fault, or a disgruntled client trying to save money or reduce costs. I just get in there and fix the problem. Maybe that is just me, but I have a sterling reputation and I am the busiest contractor I know. You need to make every customer a happy one, even if he is happy because he thinks he just screwed over a dumb contractor.

Part of the reason I go this route is because when you have equipment, and the ability to run it yourself, you can go back and do more work for very little hard money. I look at those photos and all I see is a few hours of machine time and a couple of 200 dollar culverts. You could argue that the crush is spread a little thin, but after the drainage issues are resolved, it is probably not a show stopper, and a good operator could easily spread what is there to improve the coverage. The guy should just come back and do it, regardless of any contract language or verbal agreement. With a summer to settle everything down, and a good crown on the road, you would have a decent muddy all weather road. Of course when you start building, the gravel trucks and mixer trucks will beat that road into a quagmire, but that will be a new problem for a new contractor.

I am not a professional grading contractor, but I could not agree more with your assessment. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[cj06]

A road needs ditches on the sides for water to run (and it will only run downhill ). A crown to the road so the water runs to the side ditches especially on the uphill or downhill slopes.
From the ditches, into a culvert if it needs to get back across the road. Then off to wherever down is at, eventually to a stream.
I'd start with a letter to the contractor, developer, copies to your lawyer, and to the local officials (county, town, or state). Pictures to go with. No email or phone call. Too easy to ignore those. A well written letter with copies is the place to start. IMO
These things breed Gov't controls and reasons for zoning and building codes. Thanks to the fly-byes.

MAKE THAT LETTER A REGISTERED LETTER WHERE HE HAS TO SIGN FOR IT :thumbsup: