digging up rutted, pothole filled gravel road bed

[Egon]

"" You never want to re grade or break up an existing gravel road if you can avoid it. This is the worse thing you can do because you loose material every time you do this and once it's compacted again, it will be thinner then before you started. The only time you would do this is if you are going to add enough additional rock to the entire road to build it up thicker. This should only be done when the entire road is failing and the rock is less then four inches thick. Then you need to add enough rock to the entire road to make sure you are 4 inches or thicker. ""

Ripping/scarifiing a pot holed road is a very acceptable and common practice. It does require a grader and vibratory/tired packer to do it properly?

Working pothole by pothole lets you do it all over every year and usually lasts till the first rain.

 

[oosik]

I have a mile long gravel drive that has only been graded over all these years. It is now 32 years old. I have two spots that present problems and its because I have trouble getting water to drain from these spots. But I keep working on it and now the spots a quite small. Three years ago I got a grading scraper and this implement made maintenance much easier. I used the scarifiers the first time thru the two spots and then graded it all smooth. I carefully waited and the first rain I was out there rolling the two spots.

If your drive is long and you are going to redo it all - break it into chunks. My driveway naturally breaks into four sections. What I learned on the first section will certainly be used on the next three and so on. A long driveway is a continuous project.

 

[ace10]

Penn State Univ has a school dedicated to studying unpaved roadways. There are some incredible resources there.

Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies

 

[FTG-05]

I have a mile long gravel drive that has only been graded over all these years. It is now 32 years old. I have two spots that present problems and its because I have trouble getting water to drain from these spots. But I keep working on it and now the spots a quite small. Three years ago I got a grading scraper and this implement made maintenance much easier. I used the scarifiers the first time thru the two spots and then graded it all smooth. I carefully waited and the first rain I was out there rolling the two spots.

If your drive is long and you are going to redo it all - break it into chunks. My driveway naturally breaks into four sections. What I learned on the first section will certainly be used on the next three and so on. A long driveway is a continuous project.

Pics of the grading scraper? Your gravel road sounds a lot like mine: 85% is no big deal, the rest is potholes and mudholes.

Thanks,