Gravel Parking Area

[farm boy00]

I think permafrost is its own unique animal and has to be treated as such. That was a very impressive feat and I give those guys full credit.

Building a "floating" road is nonsense. The weight of the traffic must be carried to the earth/bedrock. Those layers of soils have different weight bearing capacities and angles at which that load is distributed through the profile. This is all affected but the pore pressure of the water changing with varying moisture levels. So constructing a surface that is going to have minimal movement has to transfer that wheel load in some fashion by distributing that higher psi load at the surface and spread the load out to the lower psi that the subsonic can support. Pretty simple. This can be accomplished with varying depths of rock, competent soil, or engineered geotextiles. But go ahead and "float" your road Glyford....

Hey what works works. Logic ain't always right. Like with a old Bible story. Noah and the whale. Where logically a whale can't swallow a human but God let the whale swallow Noah. There is no logic. It just works

 

[GLyford]

Earth or bedrock isn't always attainable. Ask the guys building corduroy roads over peat bogs and such.

I'm not saying what you propose isn't right most of the time...but what I am saying is that there are times when it isn't, and the guy who started the conversation hasn't been back to actually tell us what he has.

Sort of of like someone asking what to replace on his truck if it sounds kind of funny. Without more information, we're just throwing spitballs.

 

[paulharvey]

Earth or bedrock isn't always attainable. Ask the guys building corduroy roads over peat bogs and such.

I'm not saying what you propose isn't right most of the time...but what I am saying is that there are times when it isn't, and the guy who started the conversation hasn't been back to actually tell us what he has.

Sort of of like someone asking what to replace on his truck if it sounds kind of funny. Without more information, we're just throwing spitballs.

The standard in Florida, for fairly major roads is 10" limerock, 12" of stabilized subgrade (they add 4" of rock and run a mixer 12" deep, mixing the 4" of rock with either native soils or clean fill) and the 24" below that unsuitable materials (organics, or fat clays) are removed and replaced with clean fill. Obviously we have 3"-4.5" of asphalt on top (1.5" of many county/city roads), but the key is compaction, and getting the unsuitables out of it. In most of the areas we don't have much of what you would call "top soil", but we do clip the grass/sod/maybe top few inches off.

 

[Industrial Toys]

A curduroy road certainly is a floating road and apparently works quite well. I have a thousand foot driveway that is built on organic material. That's not the way I would have liked it, but it's what I inherited. The odd truck loads of gravel over the years served quite well and with the exception of when the frost comes out of the ground, the driveway is serviceable.

 

[MESSMAKER]

Sometimes some larger stone will help you get a better base. Creek rock or stone about as big as a tennis ball followed by some #6. Pack that down and then wait a while and pack it again. Make sure you have some slope and that might be all you need. I really like dense grade or #9s for a top coat, but that does not hold up well to running water.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Pouring gravel on topsoil or grass is a fools errand. You have to give the stone a foundation or it won't support anything. We have clay right below a couple inches of topsoil. There is rarely stone within 10 feet of the natural surface. What geotextile does is give your stone a base so you can use less stone. It effectively gives the stone more of a foot print Nad keeps fines from migrating up into the stone. If your axle load at the surface doesn't get spread out enough by the stone below then the next layer of material can't support it and you get ruts.

Water is the enemy when road building. Keep the water out of the stone or drain it away as soon as possible.

I have a good road where I did not dig and where I did I don't. Set answers are easy but not always true. Say what you will but I know better. Ed
By the way I have said nothing about anyone being a fool. Ed

 

[RedNeckRacin]

I have a good road where I did not dig and where I did I don't. Set answers are easy but not always true. Say what you will but I know better. Ed
By the way I have said nothing about anyone being a fool. Ed

I obviously don't know your local conditions nor did I watch how your road was installed but I can tell you that you have to have a proper road constructed to be a able to transfer the load from a truck tire down to a reasonable psi that the subgrade can support. This is not my opinion, it's an engineering faCT that cannot be reasoned away. Tire loads can approach 800lbs/inch for a semi. I realize that we are not building a highway with a crazy number of esal's but the principal is the same. We use rock, pavement, or concrete to take the higher loads and spread them over a larger area to transfer to the next layer of support which also happens to be cheaper or spreads this loading out more. This is all in attempt to get the insitu material at some point to carry this loading without deforming. Depending on the area and what soils are present this can take very little effort and luck for some people or it can take some very complex systems to accomplish this simple task.

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Hey what works works. Logic ain't always right. Like with a old Bible story. Noah and the whale. Where logically a whale can't swallow a human but God let the whale swallow Noah. There is no logic. It just works

Pretty sure there are whales that are large enough to swallow a human. There is a logical reason of how a force is resisted. They have engineers figure this stuff out every day. It is certainly not a miracle. Otherwise, how do we build these highways all over the country. Civil engineers know what they are doing.

 

[cat fever]

Hey what works works. Logic ain't always right. Like with a old Bible story. Noah and the whale. Where logically a whale can't swallow a human but God let the whale swallow Noah. There is no logic. It just works

OK I'm no expert on the Bible, but memory tells me it was Jonah and the whale not Noah. Noah might have seen some whales after he built the ark and it started to float.

As far as the topic; I'd go with Redneckracin's plan because it sounds like he knows what he's talking about.:thumbsup:

 

[LD1]

I'd start by digging up an area to see what he actually has.

Around here, we don't do driveways like roads. We don't need a 4' thick gravel base to drive on.

We spread what we call 1's and 2's limestone about 4" thick. Those are maybe 2"-5" diameter. Fist sized to softball sized.

Then top that with 304's. Which is also called 1.5" minus. Which is anything and everything that will fit through a 1.5" screen. So it has a lot of fines and dust to lock the base stone in. That stuff packs like concrete and alot just quit there. If you want a top coat, a few inches of 8's which are pea sized, or a few inches of 57's which are 3/4". (Large marble size).

If the op has a decent base but just organics on top, scrape that off and go with the 304's. Sometimes called crusher run.