Driveway trailer ruts
- Thread starter kj3
- Start date
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crreed67
Silver Member
This.
Progress Report
3 trenches done, about 140' total. Perforated pipe laid down and covered with 3" rock. This should allow a lot more drainage, hopefully solving much of the ongoing problem. Of course since I'm laying in the pipe I did what umtallguy said and curved the end of the pipe up to the surface. Plan to place a 1' x 1' grate and drain box there but for the next few days the hose is just draining straight in.
Today my good neighbor came over with his BX25 and scraped away all the clay brought up by the trencher. He spread out the rest of the 3" rock for the trailer parking area and flatened it out. Afterwards I drove over the whole surface to pack it down even more. Tomorrow the fabric goes down and then gravel.
I hear you guys, concrete is always an option and if this doesn't pan out then at least I'll know the foundation is best as possible when we do pour concrete. Being the most expensive option and one that tends to always crack I'll go that route if we must but doing that at the house just begs to do the whole area around 2 garage doors plus 90 yard long driveway so I've tried to not bust my wallet just yet. The trenches probably should have been done when the house was built but that was long before me.
Drain to daylight
Three trenches about 25' apart the last one is near the trees in the back.
You can see how the clay just piled onto the tires, it packed in all sorts of places we spent an hour cleaning out. Probably I should have rented a bobcat.
Smooth more so than level but having slope means drainage. I'll just have to border it so the gravel doesn't wash away.
3 trenches done, about 140' total. Perforated pipe laid down and covered with 3" rock. This should allow a lot more drainage, hopefully solving much of the ongoing problem. Of course since I'm laying in the pipe I did what umtallguy said and curved the end of the pipe up to the surface. Plan to place a 1' x 1' grate and drain box there but for the next few days the hose is just draining straight in.
Today my good neighbor came over with his BX25 and scraped away all the clay brought up by the trencher. He spread out the rest of the 3" rock for the trailer parking area and flatened it out. Afterwards I drove over the whole surface to pack it down even more. Tomorrow the fabric goes down and then gravel.
I hear you guys, concrete is always an option and if this doesn't pan out then at least I'll know the foundation is best as possible when we do pour concrete. Being the most expensive option and one that tends to always crack I'll go that route if we must but doing that at the house just begs to do the whole area around 2 garage doors plus 90 yard long driveway so I've tried to not bust my wallet just yet. The trenches probably should have been done when the house was built but that was long before me.
Drain to daylight
Three trenches about 25' apart the last one is near the trees in the back.
You can see how the clay just piled onto the tires, it packed in all sorts of places we spent an hour cleaning out. Probably I should have rented a bobcat.
Smooth more so than level but having slope means drainage. I'll just have to border it so the gravel doesn't wash away.
Update 2
After trenching and putting down the 3" base rock I packed that down just driving over it some, not too much but just a bit. The trailer had to be put in place several times so I could see how it was doing with the fresh covering of big rock and though it did settle a bit I was able to move a few shovels over and get it level again.
So to get the next layer done I used a geofabric like folks suggested here, that went over the 3" rock while it was smoothed out.
I went a step further after seeing some people on Youtube using geogrid on a sloped driveway, it wasn't much more but the 2" depth lets the 3/4" gravel fit into the pockets and it can't really mush out sideways. I don't think I'll regret this step.
I was able to sift the 3/4" pretty well and we spread out any excess. I could tell right way that it was holding up well to the heavy bobcat. I installed two strips, each about 8-9 feet wide and used alot of stakes. This made for about 20' x 17' which is more than enough.
It's been a couple of weeks and a little rain but I can't see anything that doesn't look like day one. Next I'll call in a load of millings to finish things off.
Thanks everyone for your feedback on this project. I'll try to post an update in the future just so people can see if it holds up in the long run.
After trenching and putting down the 3" base rock I packed that down just driving over it some, not too much but just a bit. The trailer had to be put in place several times so I could see how it was doing with the fresh covering of big rock and though it did settle a bit I was able to move a few shovels over and get it level again.
So to get the next layer done I used a geofabric like folks suggested here, that went over the 3" rock while it was smoothed out.
I went a step further after seeing some people on Youtube using geogrid on a sloped driveway, it wasn't much more but the 2" depth lets the 3/4" gravel fit into the pockets and it can't really mush out sideways. I don't think I'll regret this step.
I was able to sift the 3/4" pretty well and we spread out any excess. I could tell right way that it was holding up well to the heavy bobcat. I installed two strips, each about 8-9 feet wide and used alot of stakes. This made for about 20' x 17' which is more than enough.
It's been a couple of weeks and a little rain but I can't see anything that doesn't look like day one. Next I'll call in a load of millings to finish things off.
Thanks everyone for your feedback on this project. I'll try to post an update in the future just so people can see if it holds up in the long run.
