Adding a parking area. Practical with tractor?

Freds · Jul 21, 2009

I'd like to enlarge/widen the parking area in my gravel driveway. This would mean building up the grade where it currently tapers into my lawn about 2' to get it up to the current level. I'm thinking about 40' long that I'd have to do this and the extended part would be about 10' deep. And of course, it would need a grade or pitch for rain runoff. And rather than a retaining wall, I'd like the three sides to gradually taper back into my yard for a mowable surface.
Is this a feasible project for a tractor? I'm thinking this is one of those projects where an excavating contracor can come in and be done with it in half a day and do a much better job with the compaction of the fill needed, plus giving it the proper grade. Any thoughts?

CurlyDave · Jul 21, 2009

I make that out as just about 30 yards of material, which is well within the capabilities of your tractor. Of course you also need to scrape off enough topsoil to make the taper before you put down rock and gravel. For a parking area, I would plan to do it in two stages. Just scrape off enough earth to make your taper, and then put down rock & gravel. See how much it settles, and in a few years bring in enough extra gravel to level it out if it settles too much for your liking.

Are you planing on buying that much material, or are you going to move it from somewhere else on your property?

If you are buying it, then your tractor is clearly more than enough, if you are moving it from elsewhere on your property it is still enough, but will take longer. About half of what you need is base rock and then gravel which would be bought & trucked in, so you only need 15 yards of fill, still very doable with your tractor.

Around here, the guys who truck in base rock and gravel are quite skilled at spreading it as they dump, so the work you need to do with the tractor is minimal. In Oregon, compacting by driving a fully-loaded dump truck back & forth over the previous material is perfectly acceptable for compaction and all the operators will do this for you.

If I was doing this, I would just scrape enough earth off the area to make the taper, and then truck in base rock and gravel to come up to your finished level. Base rock is not much more expensive than fill and will give you a better job. Have them lay down about 6" of rock, then push topsoil back against it to form the start of your taper. The second guy will compact the first load of rock for you, and dump his load. Another 6" of dirt for your taper, and another 6" of rock. The switch to 3/4" minus for the last layer.

The cost of trucking in material is easily offset by the savings of not hiring heavy equipment.

Freds · Jul 21, 2009

Thanks for the reply, Dave.
When you say to scrape off the topsoil to make my taper.... Do you mean so that the fill rests on like dirt, or similar dirt, rather than the topsoil? Is this to make a better bond?
I do have an area of very good fill dirt. The excavation contractor that did work on my land got all his fill from an area out back. He had a full size excavator and dump truck though. I'm trying to weigh out buying the fill needed or moving it one loaderfull at a time. 30 yards gives me something to go by as I don't know how to figure that out. I was hoping to get it done this year and not make a couple year project out of it.

kthompson · Jul 21, 2009

You probably can rent a hyd dump trailer and make it quicker on moving the dirt especially if you will be hauling it any distance. A 2 yard trailer is not very large but would be somewhere about 7,000 pounds up loaded.

Just as I hit post thought about the weight and my using about same size trailer with a M6800 tractor. Two yards might be heavy enough to pull your tractor down the slope if you back over it to dump. Be careful if you work on slope with loaded dump trailer. If you go with dump trailer try to get one that raises more than say 45 degrees so it will dump dirt.

Freds · Jul 21, 2009

Good idea on the trailer. I know I've seen my neighbor get one before from someone he knows, I've used my loader and hoe to fill it for him (lol). His tractor has the hydraulics for it, too. Mine doesn't, but he uses my tractor all the time, so I'm sure he wouldn't mind reciprocating.
I'm going to get a price tomorrow, too, just for comparison's sake. The guy I spoke with on the phone says he has the equipment to compact it for use right away, which is important to me. Too high though and I'll do it myself. Still, if he can bang it out in a day, that's something I need to think about, too.

CurlyDave · Jul 21, 2009

When I say scrape of the topsoil to make your taper, what I am referring to is that you said you wanted to taper the parking area into the lawn which is ~2' lower than the parking area.

You can either do this by using a sloping layer of rock and fill, which will not grow grass very well, or you can make sort of a "basin" out of topsoil with the basin filled with your rock and fill. Since you have the topsoil already, I thought you would rather have the taper from topsoil, which will grow grass, as opposed to rock, fill and gravel, which won't grow grass.

This also gives your parking area a better base, since the topsoil will compact and the organic material in it will decompose.

Freds · Jul 22, 2009

Ahh, gotcha, Dave. That makes perfect sense now.
Thanks

Freds · Jul 23, 2009

Just to update.
I got a price of $1,335 from a local contractor. Real local, he lives on the next street up (lol). His quote listed 66 ton of bank gravel for the base and 10 ton of 2b to top it off. Plus he would taper back into my yard area with the existing topsoil. He said weather permitting, one long day to do the job. Pricey, but if I break it down that's 3-1/2 tri-ax loads. A couple years ago I was paying 280 per load for 1b stone. So if I purchased the fill, which I've been leaning towards, I guess about 400 isn't too bad to have someone come in who does this kind of work and be done with it. And he would tamp it, also, so there would be my rental for a tamper if I'm justifying cost that way. The big benefit would be not having my parking area torn up for more than a day, which my customers will appreciate. The downside is I'm not doing the work myself, but I can live with that to have things done in a day by a professional. I imagine I'll still need the rototiller and rake to work the taper into something that can be seeded. It might even benefit me to till it up before he pushes the sod.

So that's where I'm at with that.

newbury · Jul 23, 2009

Just make sure you closely supervise the job while sitting on your tractor with the engine running, maybe move the FEL up and down, run around a bit, etc. There's no substitute for seat time.

Therios Pendragon · Jul 23, 2009

newbury said:
Just make sure you closely supervise the job while sitting on your tractor with the engine running, maybe move the FEL up and down, run around a bit, etc. There's no substitute for seat time.

DANG!! that is a funny mental picture... you might even move it back and forth once in a while... maybe even get someone to bring you a cold drink...

Truly ROFL.