Desperately need to fix driveway

[Smokeydog]

If UPS trucks rutting up your driveway you have two problems. Not enough or right kind of stone and drainage.

Fix drainage issue first. Either hire someone or rear grader blade. May require ditching. Observe the driveway during downpours and correct according. Most of my driveway maintenance was with grader blade backwards at an angle, tilted like gg for over forty years.

The type of stone varies so much with locality and opinion.

Bought land plane 6 years ago. Can’t beat it for gathering, classifying, distributing, crowning, recovering gravel driveway. Greatly reduces maintenance time and costs. Simple easy to use.

Depending on the OP input might be best have someone to fix and haul stone then learn to maintain.

 

[MoMower]

Was modified, crusher run or road base used? Or was clean stone used? Clean stone will always push out, no matter how well the driveway is graded/shaped.

Re-accruing potholes have to be busted up from the edges for the fix to last.

 

[bill9068]

If you are having drainage issues install a few water bars to divert the runoff. I have a drive uphill, gravel and a half mile long. It would wash out every time we had a hard rain, I cut some water bars problem went away. We just had 5 inches of rain a couple of weeks ago and very minimal damage.

 

[oosik]

I should add - I have a hydraulic top link. It makes using all my land engagement implements so much easier. They will do the very best job for you because any adjustments are done on the fly and can be done until the implement is working perfectly.

 

[Tony H]

My suggestion...fix any/all places where storm water runs down the drive and not across the drive...then get it topped with something like "crusher run" that has fines that will pack down hard...loose gravel will only get worse over time...

Working a gravel drive when it's been dry is not recommended...it tends to separate the fines and leaves nothing but more lose gravel...regardless of the implement used...
Fines are the key to maintaining a gravel lane that is like concrete...

Good Luck...

I agree with the Crusher Run. Not sure what they call it in your neck of the woods. But it does pack hard. I also think that you will get a real benefit by putting down a matting. I started my driveway with it and 6 years later it's fine. My neighbor has been just using Shale stone for the last 30 years and he needs to Top it every three years as the stone gets rutted and driven into the ground. I bought my matting at Lowe's. After that, a box would probably work to pass over once a year, after snow plowing pushed stuff around a bit

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hanes-Geo-Components-TerraTex-360-ft-x-12-5-ft-Black-Nonwoven-Geotextile/3316348

 

[jcman]

Hello All,

I posted a similar thread about 1.5 years ago regarding our driveway and after much thought, we decided to get a professional to fix it and get it done right. Well, after having a "professional" add gravel and smooth the driveway about 10 months ago, we are back to the same driveway with ruts....but we now have more gravel.

Info on our wonderful driveway. We currently have a .25 mile driveway (future driveway will be around .25 miles also) with surge stone and gravel. When the UPS/Fed Ex/Amazon driver comes down the driveway, they rut it up really bad. I have a small sporty'ish sedan and it's dinging up my skid plate and who knows what else.

My husband has given me the go ahead to purchase an implement to fix the driveway! Woohoo! I'm leaning towards the box blade mainly for the future house we hope to build in the next 2 years if lumber prices ever come down. The box blade would be used to maintain about 1/2 mile of existing trails, smooth out the land around the future house and finish building the rest of the .25 mile driveway.

We have an MX5800 (no hydraulics) and I think a 6-7', >700lb box blade would work best, maybe an EA Severe Extreme (78' or 84') or a Woods (76-84'). My husband thinks a land plane would be better. Any suggestions? I need to purchase it quickly before he changes his mind.

Thank you!

 

[Hilbilly]

1) Fix the drainage problem. The road needs to be above the water and shed rainfall to the side(s).
2) Use a well graded, crushed gravel. From the pic it appears the material used is not crushed and therefore has no sharp edges to help it bind and there are no finer gravels to fill the voids. It's like driving over marbles, they will just roll out of the way, since there is nothing binding the materials together.
3) Once the driveway has proper drainage, a crown and proper gravel, compact the surface. The compaction serves 2 purposes, 1) to seal the surface and help it shed rainwater and 2) to bind the materials and make the mixture as dense as possible.

 

[mgstevens]

Like a lot of rural/semi-rural folks, I also have a 400' drive that needs help to stay passable, particularly in spring. The problem is clay fines. They absorb water, freeze and expand. During spring thaw, they release the moisture and combined with their slippery-when-wet nature, create mud for weeks.

A few years ago, I took an area in front of my carport 30'x30' and tried a three step process: grade for runoff, add a layer of 3/4" washed rock (no fines) about 2-3" thick, then a layer of "crusher dust" 1-2" thick, which is all rock and about a 1/4"-minus aggregate. The no-clay-allowed crusher dust locks the washed rock together, the rock layer allows movement of moisture over the graded base and for 3 years, no mud in spring.

I'm about to do three other areas this summer, same fashion. Grading for runoff on the base (mine has too much clay for my liking..) adding a very porous layer, and then a locking layer allowing seepage with no ability to absorb water itself. I have needed to add some crusher dust in a couple of areas in the original patch that sift down into the larger rock. With real soft ground, start with some 3-6" minus stone for a base.

Also: if one can find and afford the proper fabric under the rock, it really is the pro touch for road-building over a soft area. At some point, the total cost begins to approach or exceed asphalt.

 

[Snobdds]

Your road is the low point of the surrounding land. Need to get the road higher than the surrounding land. Add in some ditches to keep the water off. Then crown it.

It took considerable effort to build, but I have never seen a pot hole or standing water on my road. It's never muddy and is solid as a rock.

Build up the your road. Grading it without raising it will only keep you busy every year.

 

[ruffdog]

I agree with the other posters saying a drive being the low point is a recipe for failure. At least get it to grade with big rock and top it off with crusher run.

 

[HarryMonkey]

Best hilly driveway I ever had was in the hills out behind Paso Robles, CA. Not a high rainfall area so that's a consideration. The driveway I'm referring to was 6 inches of crushed white shale. Once it got wet and driven on, it stayed put for years and needed only occasional touching up with a reversed back blade. I had it "tailgated" in then smoothed it with the back blade and then wet it down and ran my pickup up and down several times and done. This is on land that would sink tires to the hub immediately when it rained. I have a crushed rock driveway now, not so steep and I started it with 1-1/2 inch crushed rock for the base which has worked out well. If you start with smaller rock, it will give way after a shorter time.

 

[deezler]

Whoa whoa whoa. Every one take a deep breath here, lol. OP's head must be swirling with all this advice. (driveway threads are the best).

I concur with the correct assessments of improper grading (no ditches, no crown, etc) and type of stone used so far (large, round, no fines). It will obviously keep leading to this problem.

However, I also don't see any obvious erosion in the pics, or muddy spots. Might be a pretty deep layer of this large rock. You have a good start here.

But the OP has an MX5800! Just get a nice HEAVY land plane, and start pulling that driveway back and forth. You'll get it smoothed out in no time. If it were me and money wasn't a problem, I would definitely get that nice base rock covered up with 3 to 4 more inches of finer gravel. If you have sandy soil and dont want to buy any new gravel, you could even mix in a light amount of sand with those large driveway stones, and keep working it with the land plane. Drive up and down a bunch of times to pre-compact it before you get your next UPS guy doing 20 mph on it, lol.

Lots of folks advocating for crusher run, with fines. Certainly a solid way to go, but just realize that the fines that help lock the rock together also trap water, so you get pot holes and puddles eventually. If you want to keep that low sports car clean, maybe not the best way to go. My 1000' driveway is 3/4"-minus CLEAN, no fines, over a well compacted base of larger rock. Yes, it moves around a bit and starts to washboard when people drive too fast, but 10 minutes on my tractor with the rear blade or box blade has it perfectly smooth again - maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I also want a land plane eventually though.

 

[deezler]

Is that "concrete to rock" picture really your main driveway though? That looks more like a logging trail, lol. No dirt work to set a contour or grade, no ditches, just a dump of rock curving around a tree and up the hill?

I'm not going to tell you to start over, but, you kinda should. A contractor is going to charge several thousand dollars. You have the right machine yourself already, if you can devote a couple dozens hours of seat time to this project.

 

[zzvyb6]

S h e w a n t s t o k n o w w h a t i m p l e m e n t t o get, n o t w h a t g r a v e l p i t t o v i s i t o r b u y.

Beg, borrow or steal an 8' rake. Sold mine for $800. if it doesn't work, add more money and get a land plane, or a box blade. Then just tune it up a few times a month until it is what you want.

 

[sunbeam67]

Check around for some place with asphalt millings way better than gravel.

 

[crazyal]

I think the OP needs to identify what's happening before trying to fix the problem. Is the gravel moving to the sides which is creating ruts? If so round rocks are like marbles. They roll and move and without something to hold them in place, often called fines, like small pieces of broken rock you're always going to have a problem. Or is the gravel sinking into the ground. As in is the ground under the gravel turning into mud and swallowing up the gravel.

As for water, what happens when you get rain? Does water run down the driveway or if the ground is flat pool up? Running water will wash away the fines I talked about so it's best to find a way to stop it. Puddles (standing water), when a tire goes through it and splashes it'll throw smaller pieces of your driveway off to the side. Puddles just get bigger and deeper and require a lot of work to properly repair (just filling them in rarely works).

My best advice is to get your rain jacket on the next time is rains and watch to see what the water is doing.

 

[/pine]

The main road does not need to be higher than the surrounding terrain...As long as the flow line of the ditches is below the driving surface and they are wide and deep enough to carry the capacity of runoff...

 

[DaveD1944]

This thread gives me an idea. I have a 650' gravel drive with curves, well drained but with loose gravel. I need to grade it a couple times a year mostly because of our friends at UPS and FedEx drive about 20mph and throw gravel to the side on the curves and turn it into a washboard where they come off the asphalt street. I bought a 5' Land Pride box scraper 25 years ago and tried using it for 10 years, then finally put it away for this purpose and started smoothing it with my front loader going forward in float mode and the bucket tilted all the way up, which presents a nice curved surface to the irregular surface and does a decent job, but takes too long. The problem with the box scraper is that the height has to be adjusted above grade with the hitch control or it wants to move massive amounts of gravel (as is its purpose), and once adjusted it will only make the washboard worse as the tractor rear end rocks up and down on the existing hills and dales. It really needs to float on the surface.

I'm not interested in buying additional attachments, so I'm thinking that I could fabricate and attach sled rails to the sides (easy for me to do) and use it like a grading scraper, removing the front or rear facing blade and/or rear facing flapper as necessary (whichever works best). If I remember right the rear facing blade bottom edge is about the height of the bottom edge of the sides but the front facing blade is an inch or two lower. It wouldn't be as nice as some other implements like the grading scraper and would not help me with moving gravel from the edge to the center, but would be a lot cheaper!

Comments?

 

[Snobdds]

The main road does not need to be higher than the surrounding terrain...As long as the flow line of the ditches is below the driving surface and they are wide and deep enough to carry the capacity of runoff...

Read your replay again, just this time really slowly.

Report back.

 

[/pine]

Read your replay again, just this time really slowly.

Report back.

LoL...Exactly what is it you don't understand ??...an open storm water sewer is not so different than a contained system (pipes/catch basins etc...)...it all about gravity and flow line elevations...

If a road bed is significantly higher than the surrounding terrain...if the road, lane etc is crowned there is no need for ditches...
...try cutting a road through the mountains and making the road higher than the mountain...LoL...!