Fired Road contractor. Build it myself?

[sixdogs]

We re-built 1200' of our road when we lived in New England and borrowed the town pull-type "road grader". It was really old and needed grease but it helped with the basic crowning. It took some HP to pull but did the basics in short order. Maybe your town, or one nearby has a grader you can borrow?

 

[deerefan]

We re-built 1200' of our road when we lived in New England and borrowed the town pull-type "road grader". It was really old and needed grease but it helped with the basic crowning. It took some HP to pull but did the basics in short order. Maybe your town, or one nearby has a grader you can borrow?

If not, if someone can or still runs a motor grader in your area, offer him a few dollars to do it. I gave the motor grader operator for our town $100 to grade a road for me when my dozer was down. Took him about 2 hours, money well spent.

 

[Egon]

A motor grader for the OP's road project would be heaven. Make that a Cat # 16 with a competent operator at the controls and it would be beyond heaven!

As to back blade width it should extend past the tire on one side enough that you can cut into the side hill or pull out dirt for a ditch.

From the looks of your soil a drum vibratory packer may do both the dirt and stone compaction. Your tractor probably can't pull a big enough smooth drum roller.

Gage wheels on the back blade allow you to lose a little dirt each time you are rolling a windrow across the road. This really helps getting a nice smooth continuous road surface.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I think I would invest some money in hiring a motor grader to put in uphill side ditches and grade the road with proper crown. A good operator with a large motor grader could do 1/4 mile of road in a day easily. Then with the road bed properly shaped, the dump truck driver can spread the gravely pretty well by just chaining the tail gate to only open a small amount and then driving forward as the bed is raised. It may require a little bit of levelling afterwards but not much.
I would go with 3" stones for a base then after compacting it, top it with 3/4 crusher run rather than solid crusher run. You need the large stone base to keep it from sinking into the ground.
Also IF and that is a big IF, you can determine culvert location prior to putting in the gravel, it will be much better. Why disturb your road base if you don't need to by digging a wide hole across it for a culvert.

As for equipment, a land plane is going to be far improved over a straight blade for shaping and maintaining your road. If you use a hired motor grader to put in your ditches and crown the road bed, you wont even need a straight blade for anything. I don't know if you have ever used a blade, but they are very easy to get dips and dives in the road surface and the more you try to remove the high and low spots the worse they get due to the tractor following the contours and the blade just cutting more and more each time the tractors wheels ride over the hump or dip.

 

[sdef]

Are you in a big hurry? It just depends money vs your time...it's already roughed in and with your equipment I say go for it. Do one section and see how it goes with you prepping and having material delivered.

Btw, looks like beautiful setting!

+1. I built a shorter driveway two years ago on my own through densely wooded, very rocky, very dense clay. Most of my time was spent clearing the 14' - 16' driveway of trees and digging out rocks weighing hundreds of pounds.

If you have the time (and heavy box blade and good FEL bucket) it looks like the hard part is done. I would investigate on the Internet about road building for your usage and also get the advice of a good, local, gravel hauling company.

Added: A good landscape rake is very handy. A farmer friend has a 3PH land grader he uses to maintain his 1/2 mile road.

 

[radioman]

Wait... You fired him because he trying to do this legally with permits and he couldn't get it on time? And he offered to take a hit in profit? I'm sorry.. There something wrong with this pic

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Wait... You fired him because he trying to do this legally with permits and he couldn't get it on time? And he offered to take a hit in profit? I'm sorry.. There something wrong with this pic

Might want to go back a re-read the post. :drink:

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Wait... You fired him because he trying to do this legally with permits and he couldn't get it on time? And he offered to take a hit in profit? I'm sorry.. There something wrong with this pic

I fired him because there was no communication from him about any of the delays. He simply didn't show up and didn't bother to tell me why. I had to reach out to him to find out why. The first time I had to call him should have been a clue that he needed to communicate. After going thru that a few times I was done. If I'm paying you I need to know what is going on.

 

[Ford850]

Start here for your soil survey maps:
Web Soil Survey - Home
There's a ton of info on the soils for your property.

 

[sixdogs]

Start here for your soil survey maps:
Web Soil Survey - Home
There's a ton of info on the soils for your property.

What a great site. Thank you.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Start here for your soil survey maps: Web Soil Survey - Home There's a ton of info on the soils for your property.

Fantastic. Thank you.

 

[LD1]

Informative maps.....but I just dont find them useful.

Perhaps I just dont understand them. But there are literally a dozen different soil "types" within 1 mile of my house. All of them called _________ silty-loam.

And for the blank, fill in a nearby town/township. IE: bennington silty loam, croton silty loam, centerburg silty loam, amanda silty loam, etc etc etc. Reading the description and they all read about the same too.

And I can tell you, after digging probably 50 holes and several hundred feet of trenches in all the fields around.......there are areas on the map that they show the soil being the same.....and I can tell you they are NOT. There are also areas they list as different, but I can assure you the soil structure is the same.

Heck, at my old house they list "condit silt loam" for where I dug my pond. HAd about 4" of topsoil and from there down 8' was nothing but 100% black/dark grey waxy clay. The kind that sticks to the shovel and boots and just refuses to come off. They list that same stuff in several areas around me now and I can assure you, we have none. All we have is the light to moderatly dark brown clay. Its sticky, but nothing like the black stuff. Some areas have rocks and what I would consider to be more sandy/loamy....as the dirt dont pack together and stick in the bucket, or to shoes and shovels. But its mostly brown clay in this area.

So.....take those maps with a grain of salt. They are basically estimations of what they think the soil type is in your area. Nothing is gonna be better than being there first hand and seeing what you have in person.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

This morning I texted him early and said we were not going to use him. He called within 5 minutes to smooth things. I said thanks but no. He texted me several times after that offering a discount and asking if he could make it right. I stuck to my gut and said no. IT was time for us to part ways.

Late to the thread, but just wanted to say you made the right call on that contractor. If he's flaky before he even starts work, he's not going to suddenly improve when he starts work and now has you by the short hairs.

As for doing it yourself, I don't know enough about building roads to comment, but I can say that there are very few things a contractor can do that a reasonably intelligent person with the right tools can't do as well, and nobody is going to give it as much care as you will.

My neighbor just had some drainage work done by a contractor. It's crap. I can do better, and have. I don't know if he's a crook or just stupid, but he's making a living doing that garbage.

Just because he has a contractor's license doesn't mean he can do better work.

 

[sdef]

Yep. Large scale maps of most types for anything are great for an overall look. But in my experience at the micro level are not as good.
Example: When I bought my property a few years ago, I knew it would be a troublesome piece to get septic approval, underground power installed and overall drainage. A few pics are attached of what I dealt with. A neighbor down the road built a basement access home on a hill side culminating at a large pond. They had no large rocks on their property. Mine looks like a glacier ended here and dumped its largest rocks in the front half of the property. Other neighbors also had no large rocks.

It appeared the original owners were unable to get septic approval as there were several backhoe pits dug at various locations at sites obviously not suitable. I made my initial try at septic approval and failed- twice. I then hired a soils engineer for a reasonable price and a track hoe. The soils engineer thought we may not be able to make a septic work and totally disregarded the front half of the property as it would not work. With his experience he directed the track hoe to various places and finally found the mother lode of septic drainage soil, which put the drain field ~ 200' down slope from the proposed home site which set on rock.

So my point is each site has its own unique soil conditions and a soils engineer can provide the exact information you need for a reasonable price.

 

[sdef]

Late to the thread, but just wanted to say you made the right call on that contractor. If he's flaky before he even starts work, he's not going to suddenly improve when he starts work and now has you by the short hairs.

As for doing it yourself, I don't know enough about building roads to comment, but I can say that there are very few things a contractor can do that a reasonably intelligent person with the right tools can't do as well, and nobody is going to give it as much care as you will.

My neighbor just had some drainage work done by a contractor. It's crap. I can do better, and have. I don't know if he's a crook or just stupid, but he's making a living doing that garbage.

Just because he has a contractor's license doesn't mean he can do better work.

Agreed. When my new custom built home was completed a year ago, the building contractor stressed that I not change the grading as it could damage the foundation, especially on my property of poor soil drainage. Made sense until the first few heavy rains showed the poorness of their work that turned our sidewalk at the front of the house into a pond site. So I documented for any potential future legal issues and regraded myself to my satisfaction. All documented with photos and emails.

I also looked at some driveways (375' - 550') they had done in my difficult area and none are near as well built as I did mine. Although they are all serviceable. YMMV.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Yep. Large scale maps of most types for anything are great for an overall look. But in my experience at the micro level are not as good. Example: When I bought my property a few years ago, I knew it would be a troublesome piece to get septic approval, underground power installed and overall drainage. A few pics are attached of what I dealt with. A neighbor down the road built a basement access home on a hill side culminating at a large pond. They had no large rocks on their property. Mine looks like a glacier ended here and dumped its largest rocks in the front half of the property. Other neighbors also had no large rocks. It appeared the original owners were unable to get septic approval as there were several backhoe pits dug at various locations at sites obviously not suitable. I made my initial try at septic approval and failed- twice. I then hired a soils engineer for a reasonable price and a track hoe. The soils engineer thought we may not be able to make a septic work and totally disregarded the front half of the property as it would not work. With his experience he directed the track hoe to various places and finally found the mother lode of septic drainage soil, which put the drain field ~ 200' down slope from the proposed home site which set on rock. So my point is each site has its own unique soil conditions and a soils engineer can provide the exact information you need for a reasonable price. <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=489902"/> <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=489904"/> <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=489905"/>

Wow, that is some really rocky land. You could easily break an ankle there.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I have a friend that is a contractor. Lots of equipment. He has let me down, and other friends too. But he has also come through for me.

It's a tough business. Weather, restrictions, breakdowns, employee issues and customers always want more done than they had specified. You can't just leave and say you will come back for the extra work. Some jobs just can't wait and take priority. It's impossible to make everyone happy. Plus, maybe you get tired of calling people to cancel an appointment, and then they want to know, well when? Well, you just don't know. People don't like that, but it's often the truth. It's not a nine to five office job.

I had my guy booked for this summer. He never did show up or call. That's OK, it actually suited me. Next year.

I don't envy those guys one bit. I have also found, that the more slack you cut them, the more reasonable they can be in cost.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I have some time. My architect is reworking our plans. I can't break ground until spring for the foundation so I have a couple months to was into it. As long as the weather doesn't get too bad. I've been looking around and a 10 foot hydraulic blade will run me about 4500 used I would definitely get more use out of it. I will need that to get the ditch done properly. A land plane will have to wait. Getting a motor grader up there would probably be hard and expensive. I don't know where I would find one and I'm not sure how it would negotiate my switchback. Perhaps they are more nimble than they look.

 

[sdef]

I have some time. My architect is reworking our plans. I can't break ground until spring for the foundation so I have a couple months to was into it. As long as the weather doesn't get too bad. I've been looking around and a 10 foot hydraulic blade will run me about 4500 used I would definitely get more use out of it. I will need that to get the ditch done properly. A land plane will have to wait. Getting a motor grader up there would probably be hard and expensive. I don't know where I would find one and I'm not sure how it would negotiate my switchback. Perhaps they are more nimble than they look.

Something else I did which was instrumental to the overall success I had was to do all of the basic grading and of course tree removal. I also removed (dug out) all stumps instead of leaving them to rot later and cause soft spots. Once a stump is removed and then backfilled, you have a soft spot waiting to become a problem. Same thing when removing large rocks and backfilling.

So I prepped the area, filled in the soft spots- really very large holes with large rocks and then backfilled with existing clay. Then I had inexpensive slag (mill byproduct kind of like lava) hauled in and I spread several inches deep. I let the construction traffic beat the slag into the ground which really put a nice, hard base on it and also identified still soft areas I needed to add a load of 3" - 4" rock to. And this is where I now sit and am happy. The original goal was to put a finished layer on, maybe crusher run. But at this point I am not in any rush as what I now have works well and is solid. My Time is being spent on more important projects but will get back to the finish gravel layer one day.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Tt's a tough business. Weather, restrictions, breakdowns, employee issues and customers always want more done than they had specified. You can't just leave and say you will come back for the extra work. Some jobs just can't wait and take priority. It's impossible to make everyone happy. Plus, maybe you get tired of calling people to cancel an appointment, and then they want to know, well when? Well, you just don't know. People don't like that, but it's often the truth.

Too. Bloody. Bad. Boo hoo.

There is no excuse short of a genuine emergency for not calling when things go sideways. A contractor that doesn't call should be fired, first time, every time, unless there really was an emergency.

And poor planning is NOT an emergency.