New gravel driveway - What should this cost?

[Ken45101]

Well I agree that the 16' is too wide. Heck that's wider than the county roads around here That's probably as wide as the local state highway.

#1, I would do it in stages. Do the base, then wait until after the house construction to do the finish grade. The heavy trucks will do a good compaction job of the base, and probably leave some ruts, which you can smooth out with the finish grade.

IDK your soil condition there, but 12" of crushed rock for a residential driveway sounds excessive. 6 to 8" seems more reasonable to me. I have had good results with 4-6" of #2 (2"-4" crushed limestone) and then topping it with 304 or crusher run (fines and 1" minus).

As mentioned, the crusher run will harden into almost concrete.

 

[CurlyDave]

As others have said, check with the county on width. We had to do 12' with a turn out, or bump out on your drawing, every 150'. And, we had a maximum slope requirement. Also had to have room for fire trucks to turn around. If any of this is wrong, the county would not final our house, so check with them and get your plan signed off.

We did it just like Ken45101 suggests. Base first, let the trucks compact that, then regrade the base and do the finish. Use a vibratory roller compactor at least on the finish grade, and it is best to use it on the base rock before you put down the final. Another reason for this is that heavy trucks will tear up your final road. The heaviest things that normally come up our driveway now are UPS and the propane delivery truck.

I have also had 10 concrete trucks in 6 years, but that is not a lot of heavy truck traffic and everything has held up.

 

[RickB]

We have paved many county roads that get low traffic (100-1000 trips per day) on 8" of rock and 1.5" of asphalt. They general hold up well for the first 15-20 years.

Maybe in FL, but it wouldn't last a year here, or in Wisconsin, either. 3" of binder and 1-1/2" of final course both over a compacted, prepared base are much more appropriate for these latitudes.

 

[HillStreet]

If you plan to build a home on the site, think about doing some underground work (electrical conduit, drainage etc) as part of the driveway project--- might save you money in the long run. Also, do you have room on the site to bury some of the unwanted spoil or boulders? That would save on trucking. As for compaction, you may not need to do that if you don't have any steep grades--- base and gravel will pretty much be packed with the dozer during excavation/ placement. Also agree with otlhers who have said that 12 feet is an ample width for the driveway.

 

[farmer2009]

I have found rough bids to always come in double in price in final tally. You need to get the specifics down to the dirt work required (sq. yards of area or better cubic yards of material to be moved or applied), amount of grading to be done, any compaction of dirt that needs to be done ie the black dirt you mentioned needs to be clarified with area size. I think you may be overboard on the base and top coat requirements also. I would think 6" base would be plenty unless you are building in a swamp. I used crushed Shale for my base and only about 3" and topped with 2" of SB2 which is 1"- crushed stone. It holds up well for me, but my soil is well drained and natural soil is pretty rocky and firm. Crushed shale if available is cheap with most of the price being trucking. It is good for base as long as it isn't exposed to the sun which will break it down into very fine material in a couple years time.

Materials need to be specified in local terms for what you want to use so there is no doubt in pricing of materials. Base course should be specified and wording added to contract that compaction is required and specify the compaction method to be roller compacted rather than "walked in with dozer tracks" which some folks call that compacted. Finally spec the top coat type and thickness with a spec for type of crown to the road base and degree of linear level to within + or - xx inches per linear yard and degree of side slope. You can access road building contracts for state roads online for specs on level and crown if you want to go that far.
Specifically spelling out the requirements will get everyone on the same page and you get a better job in the end.


I see that you have a good sized tractor listed, if it were me, I would do most of the work myself as far as spreading the rock and soil prep. A good box blade and some time is about all you need. You can rent a roller compactor to compact the rock and soil fairly cheap. $7000 in your pocket for a couple days work is pretty good pay. Once you get the dirt work satisfactory, the dump truck can pretty evenly spread the rock as they dump by just chaining the dump gate so there is just a little spreading to be done. NOT only will you save money, but tractor time for me is a very enjoyable time.
I would put all the spoils in a pile and then contract someone to remove it. Sometimes, if you advertise "FREE FILL" folks will come and get it for filling in low spots or landfill material, at least around here they will.

What he said. But I am also a DIYer.

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Maybe in FL, but it wouldn't last a year here, or in Wisconsin, either. 3" of binder and 1-1/2" of final course both over a compacted, prepared base are much more appropriate for these latitudes.

Beat me to it. 4" of asphalt is the Minimum for a driveway WITH a good base and good drainage. Can you do it cheaper? sure? Are you going to do it again? You betcha. Freeze thaw cycles play havoc with roads in PA. I think thats why we are ranked 49th in the country for road quality. Your best bet is to find some local driveways that have held up well and some that have not and figure out what the differences were. I know that is a tall task, but all of our opinions from different areas of the country aren't going to do you much good. One thing I noticed that really stuck out so far in this thread was the quote for $60 an hour for trucking. Your kidding me. You can't touch a tri-axle for anything less than $90/hr in this neck of the woods. If you have loads delivered in anything less, its going to cost you more per ton to have anything delivered. Also, by having a tri-axle deliver it, your going to be hard on a residential driveway handling those sorts of weights (72,320) or around 25 tons of payload.


Best advice I can give you is take your time and do it right the first time. Any soft areas are going to need drainage, additional stone, or geo-textile for support.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I don't really have a budget, this is the second step (first step was rezoning) of my plan to build a house on this property. I'd like to do it once and I'm trying to figure out what that should cost. I'm sure I started like most people, without any knowledge of what it took I wanted it to cost about $10,000. I think now, based on the cost of materials and reducing to a 12 foot width, that the materials are around $15,500 delivered.

The current front runner wants around $7,000 for labor (excavating) so that's $22,500 total. There's no brush or anything to be cleared along the path, we're having them stop at the edge of our woods. The last 200 feet or so was a farm field so there is some black dirt that has to be removed there and other areas. There is a part where it has to be graded behind the pole building which involves blending that into the existing hill behind the building and allowing for the driveway to continue around the building for a sort of turnaround. I did ask for compaction of all of the material, I don't know if that's standard or just good practice but it seems like a good idea. The black dirt, etc. can be spread around on site but I do have a couple piles of muddy gravel and some boulders that I'd like removed from the site.

Take whatever bid you get and double it. With your design, a few concrete trucks running up and down that driveway will turn it back into a bog pretty quickly. 8" of ballast will disappear so fast you would swear there was never any there. A layer of geofabric under everything might help. I'm not familiar enough with frost heave to know how your drive will survive a dozen Wisconsin winters.

 

[teejk]

We did a heavy base coarse (granite) that was topped with smaller granite chips. Get anything you might need to the "other side" before you do anything. Then drive over it and let the snowplow people do what they do for a year or two. Then plan on a "recoat".

Around here granite is the most available material. Southern Wisconsin is more limestone and will certainly need a periodic recoating because it is pretty soft (when I lived there I had my gravel guy on speed dial).

 

[buickanddeere]

I work with a guy so cheap he can spread 3/4" gravel a 1/4" deep.

 

[sixdogs]

I forgot this was a new build and would say your plans will evolve as the house and property takes shape. If it were me, for now I would just build the minimum driveway to get the trucks in and out. I have been involved in a lot of builds and many times have seen people come to regret earlier decisions that involve final grade or landscape choices.