Exposed road base - driveway construction question

[BigBassBrent]

I was hoping I could get some help planning my driveway construction. Searching didn稚 produce any answers to my specific situation but I read many posts about road construction and gained some great knowledge. Thanks TBN.

The initial portion of our driveway is going to be 12' x 200' and travels downhill at a 4-5% slope. The soil is high clay content and has a pretty high rate of shrink / swell. (So the soil reports says.)

For the road subbase, we will remove top soil down to 8 which is where the red clay begins. After the subbase is leveled and compacted we will be installing geotextile woven fabric. Then we will put 8 of 3肺1 crushed limestone for the road base. There is no fine materials in this rock. It will initially be compacted with loaded vehicles. My plan is to get this portion of road built so we can begin construction of the home site.

We hope to leave the road like this (no top coat) for the heavy construction equipment to drive on. Once construction is complete (could be up to a year) we plan to come back, add more base rock to any low spots, reshape, then add 4 of top coat gravel. For the top coat plan to use a 1 3/4" limestone road base aggregate (called city base in my area) containing a lot of fines. I may come back later and add a layer of small limestone gravel for apperance.

My question is, will I be doing any harm to my subgrade and road base by leaving it exposed to rain during home construction? Without the top coat, the water will easily enter the rock base and permeate the subbase. To help with drainage during this time, I plan to put a temporary drainage ditch at the end of the road so that water that makes it to the subbase will drain out and not collect.

Is this an OK plan or should I install a top coat before the big trucks drive on it?

Sorry for the long post, lots to explain. Thanks for any help.

Added a pic since everything is better with pics~

 

[horses2]

I am going to follow this one closely, as I have a similar project. There is a right of way running thru the middle of my hayfield and it seems the only time it is used is when the ground is soft. so the ruts are huge and the folks using it tend to run into the hayfield to avoid the ruts and they make new ruts. i am going to move the right of way in stages and am also looking for pointers on gravel road construction. I do have to remove some trees and the stumps to reroute the road. sorry if this seems like a hijack, it was not intended as such, just looking for some gravrel roadbuilding tips.

 

[Billrog]

I wouldn't be concerned with getting the top coat on maybe get an extra load set to one side in case any soft spots show up. This is normal practice here in clay so the site is accessible when it's wet. We don't have lime stone but use 3 or 4" crushed rock.

 

[Billrog]

Pic. looks like a nice place btw.

 

[SirReal63]

I won't profess to be an expert road builder, however this is what we did with our black clay muck. We did nothing for the road during construction of the infrastructure and buildings, we let the heavy equipment roll right over it and pack it. We did not let anyone drive on it during rain and waited a few days after so it dried a little. Once most of the heavy trucks were done I scarified it to remove grass and leveled it out. We did not use any fabric, just hard packed good road base. It is about 4-6" deep in most places, a little deeper in others. It has worked beautifully, it has packed down with rain and traffic to almost like concrete. The more it rains and we drive over it the harder it has packed.

Start at post 219 here for a better idea of what we used.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/south/313136-small-texas-farm-beginning-22.html

My concern with your plan is without the fines, the sub base will just get pushed to the sides from the heavy trucks and tear the fabric. It is the fines that lock the pieces together as I am sure you know, without them there is nothing to keep the sub base in place. The way we did it may not be perfect but it has worked beautifully. We may go back over it with decomposed granite but we also may not, it looks good and is very densely packed. It has been a great road for being over clay.

 

[BigBassBrent]

I won't profess to be an expert road builder, however this is what we did with our black clay muck. We did nothing for the road during construction of the infrastructure and buildings, we let the heavy equipment roll right over it and pack it. We did not let anyone drive on it during rain and waited a few days after so it dried a little. Once most of the heavy trucks were done I scarified it to remove grass and leveled it out. We did not use any fabric, just hard packed good road base. It is about 4-6" deep in most places, a little deeper in others. It has worked beautifully, it has packed down with rain and traffic to almost like concrete. The more it rains and we drive over it the harder it has packed.

Start at post 219 here for a better idea of what we used.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/south/313136-small-texas-farm-beginning-22.html

My concern with your plan is without the fines, the sub base will just get pushed to the sides from the heavy trucks and tear the fabric. It is the fines that lock the pieces together as I am sure you know, without them there is nothing to keep the sub base in place. The way we did it may not be perfect but it has worked beautifully. We may go back over it with decomposed granite but we also may not, it looks good and is very densely packed. It has been a great road for being over clay.

Your road looks great Jack! Thanks for the help. I had not considered the fabric tearing under the shifting loose rock. I think your on to something. I already got my truck stuck on the temp road when it was too soft. Lesson learned. I think for our situation, we may still want to get rock down for the big trucks since it typically takes 4-5 days after a rain for the temp road to be driveable. The slight uphill grade to get back to the county road makes things more difficult without some rock to roll on.

After seeing what you did and the good results you had, I think we will still follow most of our plan but instead of 8" of the 3 x 1" crushed limestone, we will put down 8" of city base and have a pile on hand to add to low spots as they show up. Then after construction, I can add a couple more inches of the city base and reshape.

The city road base I plan to use is here.

And thanks Bullrog, we looked for a long time before we found a property that we were happy with. We are very excited about getting moved out there! The wildlife is amazing, although I think the animals are a little shaken since I started running the Kubota out there!

-Brent

 

[SirReal63]

We have been very pleased with how it turned out. The guy we used has been doing it in this area for about 30 years, his suggestion appears to have been a good one. We were fortunate that we did not have a lot of rain over the summer and fall to contend with so the road got packed very well. The areas not driven on are as soft as carpet to walk on, the soil is very loose. We still about 1000' of road to do up to the backside of the property.

Most people use the limestone or caliche base here, our main road to the property is made with it. It gets dusty and the large pieces become uncovered and it makes a bumpy ride. It will be fine once it is topped though. Our base is what they called a "premium base" and all pieces are quarter size or smaller with a whole lot of fines in it. I will try a snap a pic later today of what it looks like now after the torrential rains we had in December and January.

I love your area, in Texas terms we are practically next door neighbors.

 

[GLyford]

I think you should plan on the drainage being permanent, not temporary, and built to last...the clay will tend to act like a channel keeping the water in the gravel, even after more layers are on. If you plan now on how to manage that water, I think you will be a step ahead...?

 

[BigBassBrent]

I think you should plan on the drainage being permanent, not temporary, and built to last...the clay will tend to act like a channel keeping the water in the gravel, even after more layers are on. If you plan now on how to manage that water, I think you will be a step ahead...?

I totally agree. I plan on having the ditches set up properly in this first phase. The drainage I was suggesting was because I had previously planned on using the crushed limestone with no fines as the road base and was going to leave it exposed during construction, which meant that water was going to enter the area where I had dug out the top soil to 8" below grade. I didnt want the water to collect at the bottom of the road below the road base rock. However, this is no longer an issue if I go with the city base with fines since it will compact and shed the water to the ditches. Thanks!

 

[BigBassBrent]

Jack, I am very familar with your area. We like to stop at that little El Rancho Mexican food place in Bertram after a good day of bass fishing on LBJ. We also have several friends in Liberty Hill. In my book, we are neighbors!

I look forward to seeing more pics of the road if you get a chance. Thanks.

I decided to share a pic of the same area before we started any work. It took a lot of "vision" to see what this place could be once things were cleaned up. Lots of dead oaks and overgrowth to contend with so far. The property has not been maintained, ever. It's a great feeling when things start coming together.

 

[SirReal63]

Here you go Brent. I have filled in low spots and leveled as needed a few times.

This is for size reference.

 

[SirReal63]

This is what the main road looks like after many years of weather and vehicular traffic. It looks to be the same as what you are going to use for base. I am going to have to take my little tractor out and work on the main road but my list of chores is massive so it will have to wait.

Isn't is amazing how a little time, money and hard work can transform a piece of property? If you go back to the beginning of the thread I linked you can see what challenges we have had to overcome. Be thankful you do not have the cedar mess we started with. We had plenty of dead Oaks but fortunately there are lots of live and mature ones as well.

 

[ustmd]

I was hoping I could get some help planning my driveway construction. Searching didn稚 produce any answers to my specific situation but I read many posts about road construction and gained some great knowledge. Thanks TBN.

The initial portion of our driveway is going to be 12' x 200' and travels downhill at a 4-5% slope. The soil is high clay content and has a pretty high rate of shrink / swell. (So the soil reports says.)

For the road subbase, we will remove top soil down to 8 which is where the red clay begins. After the subbase is leveled and compacted we will be installing geotextile woven fabric. Then we will put 8 of 3肺1 crushed limestone for the road base. There is no fine materials in this rock. It will initially be compacted with loaded vehicles. My plan is to get this portion of road built so we can begin construction of the home site.

We hope to leave the road like this (no top coat) for the heavy construction equipment to drive on. Once construction is complete (could be up to a year) we plan to come back, add more base rock to any low spots, reshape, then add 4 of top coat gravel. For the top coat plan to use a 1 3/4" limestone road base aggregate (called city base in my area) containing a lot of fines. I may come back later and add a layer of small limestone gravel for apperance.

My question is, will I be doing any harm to my subgrade and road base by leaving it exposed to rain during home construction? Without the top coat, the water will easily enter the rock base and permeate the subbase. To help with drainage during this time, I plan to put a temporary drainage ditch at the end of the road so that water that makes it to the subbase will drain out and not collect.

Is this an OK plan or should I install a top coat before the big trucks drive on it?

Sorry for the long post, lots to explain. Thanks for any help.

Added a pic since everything is better with pics~
View attachment 410932

Hiya neighbor,

I am not a road expert either, but that will not stop me from offering advice--we do have a 3/4 mile road base road on similar clay soil with the same high level of elasticity (not sure if Coupland is on the Blackland Prairie). 4 of us share the road and we have maintained it for the last 15 years.

I am not sure if compacting the "raw" subbase after you remove the top soil will add any value. The soil engineers we used told us that attempting to compact the undisturbed clay was a waste of money. The clay soil was already so dense that it would not make a difference.

Also, I would be concern about putting the road base down over the crushed limestone. I am not directly familiar with the material, but my concern would be that the fines from the top layer of base would migrate down through the gravel. Keeping the fines locked in place is the key to keeping the road in good shape.

I would remove the top soil and just do the road base on the fabric for the build with plans to clean it up afterwards.

Good luck

 

[BigBassBrent]

It looks like your road is holding up well Jack. That's great and it's what we all hope for when starting these projects. Your road base has really formed a nice sheet in that last pic. As long as the water can shed off that surface, and it does not form any large cracks from a shifting subbase, it looks like it's going to hold up for a long, long time. That gives me a lot of confidence. Thanks for taking the time to snap pics and helping a fellow Texan out!

And yes, the feeling of accomplishment and pride gained from transforming basically nothing into some place you will spend the rest of your life is amazing and can't be described. I just wish I could have done it 15-20 years ago when I was younger and stronger!

I'm going to go back and read your whole project thread. I really enjoy learning from other peoples projects since I am new too most of this. Fortunately for us, at some point someone cleared most of the cedars for us. Now they are just in huge piles scattered around the property. They would be easy to burn if the person who did this wouldn't have mixed the dirt in with it when they were bulldozing. I am going to leave a few of the piles as wildlife habitat, but the ones that can be seen from the house and street will have to be burned. I attached pic of the one I plan to burn this weekend. There is an equal size pile touching the back side of the pile you see in the pic. Hopefully they will both be ash by Sunday evening.

I'll keep this thread updated as I progress. We are saving money for road materials now. We should be ready to move forward with putting rock down by mid-March.

Thanks again Jack.

 

[BigBassBrent]

Hiya neighbor,

I am not a road expert either, but that will not stop me from offering advice--we do have a 3/4 mile road base road on similar clay soil with the same high level of elasticity (not sure if Coupland is on the Blackland Prairie). 4 of us share the road and we have maintained it for the last 15 years.

I am not sure if compacting the "raw" subbase after you remove the top soil will add any value. The soil engineers we used told us that attempting to compact the undisturbed clay was a waste of money. The clay soil was already so dense that it would not make a difference.

Also, I would be concern about putting the road base down over the crushed limestone. I am not directly familiar with the material, but my concern would be that the fines from the top layer of base would migrate down through the gravel. Keeping the fines locked in place is the key to keeping the road in good shape.

I would remove the top soil and just do the road base on the fabric for the build with plans to clean it up afterwards.

Good luck

I drive through Manor every morning on my way to work! Small world. You just described my "revised " plan after posting this. That is what we are going to do. My soil is crockett loam and Axtell fine sandy loam. Anything that has not been compacted is super soft, like walking on memory foam. I appreciate the advice about compacting the raw clay. After I get the top soil out, we planned to try and drive on it for a month or so before laying the geotextile and road base. Hopefully I don't get stuck again, but at least this time I have the tractor to pull me out!

 

[SirReal63]

I hope it helps. One thing I am learning is to keep it as simple to maintain as possible. Layers of complication are not our friends. Your soil is very different from ours so I would recommend getting a couple quotes from people in your area who do it for a living. They will know what works and what doesn't. I would also advise the local coffee shop and reach out to the old timers in the area, they have the benefit of years of experience and seeing what has worked for others. We got lucky with the guy who did ours, 30 years in the area doing septic and roads.

Our little thread should be used for amusement only, we are learning as we go but so far we have not made any obviously bad decisions, just expensive ones.

 

[BigBassBrent]

Spot on Jack. We always try to employ KISS methodology. (Keep it simple stupid!) This project is a joint effort with my father. He retired about 5 years ago and wanted something to keep himself occupied so he offered to help the wife and I get set up on a rural property of our dreams. We are truly blessed. He grew up on farms and has a fair amount of construction experience. We are attempting to do everything we can without having to pay professionals. We have no restrictions on our place either, except for county approval of a few things. I'm sure we will make mistakes, waste money, and it's going to take some time, but the best part of this has been rekindling my relationship with dad though working on this project so closely. I am overly excited to finally have a reason to learn about construction since I am a computer nerd in my 9-5 life.

We are currently in Taylor and have a house on 3 acres in a neighborhood. It was quiet when we moved there about 7 years ago, but now a days, it's become the big city to me with cars blasting music up and down the street all times of day, increased crime, and drugs all over the place. Us finding this property couldn't have come at a better time. Our nearest neighbor in Coupland is a mile down the street. It is pretty darn quiet at our Mini Acres Ranch.

I am really enjoying your project thread. I am on page 7 or 8 right now. You have an awesome place and I cannot believe how great it looks after the cedar clearing. I will enjoy continuing to watch your progress.

 

[SirReal63]

Taylor was once a great little farming community, so was Bertram and for the most part Bertram still is but Austin is encroaching on us daily. We knew that would be the case and managed to find a place that was way off the beaten path and secluded. You would drive by our entrance road and never know that is was anything more than a farming access road. If you manage to find the road, you won't see our place because we left a green screen of cedars in place. Unfortunately the road gives it away now, but looking up the road you only see trees, not any structures, it still looks like a farming access road, just a nice one.

I understand your Fathers need to stay busy. I have been dealing with several health issues, not life threatening ones but ones that have forced me out of the workforce. Our little farm project is as much to keep me busy as it is our retirement plan. We are sick of subdivision life and the phony neighbors and crazy restrictions that come with it. We are fortunate that I do have the skillet to do most of the work here as that has saved us a ton of money. The things I cannot physically do or uncomfortable doing are easy to hire out.

We only had a few requirements, function over form, water no matter what happened and electricity no matter what happened and the ability to grow and raise our own food. The solar well and 3.3kW of solar power for the guest house will allow that. It has been a fun journey the past 8 months, and it has only just begun.

I hope you can find the time to start a thread on your progress. I started mine just to document in one place the transformation and as a way to gather information from others who have done this or know how to do the things I do not. TBN is an amazing resource and you will find there are many of us in the area.

 

[xzcVAbc5]

Now they are just in huge piles scattered around the property. They would be easy to burn if the person who did this wouldn't have mixed the dirt in with it when they were bulldozing. I am going to leave a few of the piles as wildlife habitat, but the ones that can be seen from the house and street will have to be burned. I attached pic of the one I plan to burn this weekend.

The piles that have a lot of dirt mixed in with them already would be good candidates to make a "hugelkultur" bed out of them. -Link-

I'm interested in making a hugelkultur bed with some wood that I have and some trees that need to go away. It will be a pistol/rifle range backstop. I'd also like to make some of the same beds and put them in my parents' windbreak with overlapping slots between them to catch the snow near the ground like a snow fence. The slots between them would make it so it's not a big bunker around the property.

 

[BigBassBrent]

Thats pretty cool. I have never heard of a hugelkultur bed but I can understand the concept since some of the piles I have look like they have already become hugelkultur beds. A few of them I am leaving as such. There are several animal burrows in them and they are growing plants already. One of the draws to this property is the wildlife, so I want to keep as much of their habitat in tact as possible. I like your idea!

Thanks for learning me something new!

The piles that have a lot of dirt mixed in with them already would be good candidates to make a "hugelkultur" bed out of them. -Link-

I'm interested in making a hugelkultur bed with some wood that I have and some trees that need to go away. It will be a pistol/rifle range backstop. I'd also like to make some of the same beds and put them in my parents' windbreak with overlapping slots between them to catch the snow near the ground like a snow fence. The slots between them would make it so it's not a big bunker around the property.