Best material and practices for 2000' driveway

[beeforty]

I would recomend that you go wider, maybe at least 12' with your driveway, which is more like a single lane on the co. road. With curves, if you have any delivery trucks, propane etc they might be cutting the corner. There are some good pics of someones sheetrock truck nosed into the soft stuff on here somewhere. Also maybe a turn around/passing spot in the middle somewhere for when you head to town and oops I forgot something.:ashamed:

 

[dmay]

I would recomend that you go wider, maybe at least 12' with your driveway,

Absolutely agree with this. The wider the better. Especially if your driveway is close to any buildings, fences etc it needs to be wide enough for you to clear extended trailer mirrors and if parked open your vehicle and trailer side doors. Also consider your trailering needs. Can you easily enter/exit/turn when pulling a trailer. Your entry/exit point might be better to widen out to 24 ft to provide adequate room to swing a truck and trailer entering and leaving your driveway.

I trailer horses so I went 24 ft wide the entire driveway. Also gives room for two vehicles to pass each other easily.

 

[3nickles]

yup,drag your boxblade back and forth till your base is smooth ,geotextile,millings.whoever said a bulldozer will pack better is wrong the tracks spread the wieght out so a bulldozer can even walk on snow.

 

[boggen]

i am a tad edgy about ya not putting in any sort of ditches / culverts in. sounds like problems down the line. were you end up having ruts and muddy spots along the driveway. i been on my mom for some time about ditches. and she like oh so what if some ruts get put in. but once she started understanding things. and then better drainage in a couple spots i fixed. the ditches started looking better and better to her. she was in a mind frame. if the road is icy i will more than likely slip into them and be stuck. what she didn't understand was the need to get the water off the road and then allowing the water to run away and not stand in spots and soak in. soaked in water was causing the problems of a mushy driveway/lanes and more ruts. that resulted in gravel disappearing into the mud.

i no longer have the website on hand. but it gave details about grade percentages and widths of the driveway / road. for going up and down hills along with bends and corners. to deal with various trucks that might ever come back into your house so they don't bottom out. or cut across the drive as they turn. along with ditches and getting water off and away from the road and its base. (from crowns to sloping entire driveway width to a side)

my experience in the old dirt lanes on the farm. once ya get them graded. and then get your rock on them. try to avoid driving on them as much as you can in wet conditions. and then drive tractors with say front loader bucket full of dirt. and say a box blade and extra weight on the rear of the tractor. and drive over the road multi times when the road is dry. i say multi paths do to having to deal with the widths of the tractor tires and overlapping the tire paths each time. i tend to find it better if i drive slow. ya it takes longer. but i get better compaction due to rocks are not sliding into a completely different location.

once things get nice and compacted. then if ya drive over the base when muddy you can some without to much problems with some expected putting in some more road base to fix some spots before final rock is put on.

 

[sidewinder770]

Well, I got 2 out of 3 quotes back so far and doesn't look good. $14,400 and $15,200. Thats for ~375 tons (mostly 6") of fill dirt and ~275 tons (about 4") of crushed concrete as well as some top soil for another project but that was only $1000 of it. That's for about 5000 SF of parking/front yard work and 1650' of 12' driveway. Both contractors so far said they wouldn't see a need for the geo fabric but I'm still not convinced of that.

I really don't have that kind of money to through at this project right now so I'll have to come up with a different plan of some sort. I really only have about 6k to spend on this right now. Maybe I could do part of it this year and some of it next year or the year after. I really want it done right but just don't have that kind of cash to spend on it right now. I'm thinking it's going to be a lot more "hands on" and doing most of the labor myself and cutting back some on the material.

Just not sure what the best route is at this point.........

 

[dstig1]

That's for about 5000 SF of parking/front yard work and 1650' of 12' driveway.

There's your problem, and there is no good way around it. You have a very long driveway, and as you noted, it also needs to be built up. That takes loads and loads of fill. No good suggestions...sorry

 

[boggen]

well if you have a tractor with a box blade. and i hope it also has a FEL (front end loader bucket on it) i would say DIY gravel road time!

you will be using the tractor to maintain the road in the first place. so you might as well build it yourself as well.

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a cheap easy way to tell grade. besides using all them fancy laser thingies. is to make a "water level" see below link. they are very cheap and very easy to use. and much better than trying to use strings.
DIY: Water Level Gauge

for you i would suggest getting say 150 feet of garden hose. to use as the main hose portion with ((good new washers in the ends)) then some clear plastic hose for each end. so you can see the water level. awesome part, you can drag the hose were ever you want, even around corners and across ditches and get a perfectly accurate water level reading. ((well as long as you don't have any leaks))

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the link i couldn't remember, someone else posted it, in another thread woot!

A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads - Introduction

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i would say conctact the local "gravel pits" in your area. they might be under "dirt", "sand", "rock" categories in your phone book. for me, they don't offer a discount as in more you buy more you get off, just a simple straight fee. over the years i have tried calling hauling companies and contractors for delivery fees. but they were either same or cost more. vs just going with the "gravel pits" haulers/drivers

i was only getting 3 to 4 loads of 16 tons of rock at a time over the years. and was limited to one local "gravel pit" but if i was going to get enough loads being delivered, some of the other "gravel pits" would start thinking about it.

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check your property, for fill, as in, take off the top soil, and see if there is any good fill dirt underneath. and at same time redo some landscaping on property, to get the dirt ya need for the driveway.

if ya don't have ditches, that be a spot to look first for some fill dirt.

 

[Kyle241]

My guess based on the description of your soil type, you don't have many stones on your property? My last house I constructed I had a 1200ft drive and I used an old rock wall for 2/3's the way. If I had not done this, the cost would have likely been comparative to your quotes. It made for a great base as it had been there for so long. I am currently looking at moving a current stone wall for a trail/road through a low point in my current property.

 

[grsthegreat]

hmm, how bout you pave it with gold, then list your address. hehe

i need some quick cash to buy some more implements LOL:thumbsup:

 

[Red Horse]

Why don't you check out if there is any road re-surfacing coming up in your area and get them to dump the millings on your property,I did the this and the road crew were more than glad as it save them on haualage to dump site, the millings make fantastic driveway.

This is a good point. Asphalt millings have value but often the cost of transport from the jobsite to the "dump site" can get high if you are talking serious mileage. We did some roadways at our fairgrounds last year. The contractor saved a total of 12 miles per trip-secondary road dropping it at our site vs. going back to their plant. We took in 30 loads (trailer dumps) in about 4 hours. I think our cost was about 8 bucks a ton. So find out if any milling is going to take place in your area in the future. I also agree on the comment on the dozer. We did our fairgrounds job with 3 pieces- a 420 Cat TLB, A Fiat/Allis (like D-4 size) and an 86" Ingersoll Vib roller. I bucketed the material with the 420, another guy was spreading with the dozer (good eye) and third guy on the vib roller.

You can rent a vib roller-maybe not an 86" -but evan a smaller one will do a good job- millings are great-just make sure you pull any chunks- and try to do it when you have good heat (sunlight). it gets better with age. We averaged around 3" in depth.

I also think fabric is a good idea. ydou have a lot to do- maybe you do it in phases-check to see if someone is going to be in a surplus fill situation in your area as a first step.