Gravel Driveway Rehab - Help

[CampyVA]

Hi All,

My house has a circular gravel driveway that has not been maintained in many years, that I want to fix up. There is plenty of base stone there, but the grass/soil has overtaken the area. (see pictures below) My plan is to kill the grass with herbicide, grade it all out with a box blade, then spread four inches of new gravel on top. I'm planning on using either a clean coarse stone (57's or 67's) or crusher run gravel. I'm leaning towards the clean stone to avoid the dogs tracking dust/mud into the house.

Does this sound like an OK plan? Do I need to add some geo-textile fabric or gravel stabilizer grids to prevent the stone from sinking into the dirt or shifting around? I don't mind periodically regrading when required, as I have the tractor/box blade to do it with.

Obviously I could use several layers of progressive smaller stone starting at 4", but I'm not interested in spending $10,000 on my rural driveway. As it is, the one layer of gravel will probably cost me $3k. The total area is around 4,000 square feet BTW.

Thanks!

 

[cathy liebchen]

Is there a layer of gravel under there now? If so you can turn it back up first.

If its already solid you can do a layer of 57 on it and call it a day. Have them use a spreader truck and you don't have to do much dressing afterwards. That stone price is not off the chart, here it would run maybe 6 truckloads of 57 to cover that at 4" deep, $400 a load



A land plane is way more useful for gravel work than a box blade.

We were told to use the geofabric only if the soils were prone to mud or wet areas. Easy to tear the fabric up if it only will have 4" of 57 on top and not a base later of larger

 

[CampyVA]

Thanks.
There is gravel there now. I'm not sure how deep it is, but I assume it's decent since we've been driving on it for years w/o sinking in too bad. It gets a little muddy after several days of heavy rain, but only on the margins for the most part.

I agree about the land plane. I wish I had one, but it's not in the budget right now. The rusty ol' box blade will have to do.

 

[Streetcar]

Uniform stone size will lead to most of it bounding into grass next to driveway. Mix of sizes needed to lock gravel in place

 

[RNeumann]

Uniform stone size will lead to most of it bounding into grass next to driveway. Mix of sizes needed to lock gravel in place

Yep- a driveway with just stone isn’t a good solution. Get crusher run, class 2 base or 3/4” minus. All 3 are basically the same thing- the name changes with location. Basically you get 3/4” rock down to fines. This combo is what roads are made of.

Unfortunately what you have has enough organics in it that the grass and weeds is growing in it. With that, your idea of 4” of new after killing everything should be a good start.

 

[boomer1025]

Campy, you have the best kind of driveway as it is now. The grass holds the stones and ground in place.
If it gets soft in spots after a soaking rain add some stones in that area.
It's easier to mow the driveway then it is to keep doing maintenance on it.
I use to keep my driveway free of grass and kept adding stones to it. Now I let the grass grow and mow it when I mow the yard. I'll add several shovel fulls of stone maybe in a year to spots that wash or get soft in the spring.
Use the money for stones on something else.

 

[oosik]

I tend to agree with boomer1025. It looks pretty stable as it is. Add crusher run to spots that tend to get soft. I have a mile long gravel driveway. The best, most stable spots, are where the grass grows in and there is a grass strip down the center.

However - you will have at least an annual grading job if you add additional material. Whatever turns you're crank.

 

[Blstr88]

That was my thought exactly when I saw the pictures - I wish my driveway looked like that!

Way easier to maintain and personally I love the look of a driveway like that, with two dirt paths for tires and grass in between.

 

[Egon]

If you do more work on the driveway dig up the present base, mix it and lay back down followed by compaction. Make sure there are defined ditches and the top width is consistent. Road Grader would be the perfect machine for this job. Then evaluate if more aggregates are required.

 

[Thomas]

Kill off what grass weeds you can than rough it up,I'd go with hard pack or crusher run.

Good dump truck operator adjust tailgate chains save you lot of work.