Gravel drive help.

Ken45101 · Mar 5, 2009

5030tinkerer said:
A friend told me about the ground up asphalt paving in lieu of limestone. I may have to try that out since it seems like a way to get the asphalt drive without the cost. Has anyone had good luck doing that?

It probably works instead of the finer limestone but is no substitute for the bigger base material.

I have heard of people using the ground up asphalt, then spreading diesel fuel on it and setting it afire. It's supposed to melt it down. I think that's the way part of our driveway was done because it looked like regular blacktop but I saw small parts of yellow centerline in it! (Previous owner worked for a paving company.) It's probably not as good as have regular blacktop put down, but I'm sure it's cheaper.

Myself, I don't have the guts to try the diesel part

Another thing to look for for the top layer is "concrete washout". This is what the trucks bring back to the yard and wash out of the trucks. It's mostly fines. The place we bought ten years ago had the driveway started with that. It sure wasn't any good for the base material but I spread it on top of the bigger rock and it seemed to work okay.

Ken

EdC · Mar 7, 2009

We've had problems with our 700 ft drive for years. We have clay over lava and basalt and it gets just a bit mushy. I started out with 1 inch minus and that just disappeared in the clay. Two years ago, near the house, we dug down about 2 ft and filled it with railroad ballast near the house. I did it in 3 or 4 inch lifts and compacted it with the tractor and a full FEL bucket. We topped that off with 3/4 minus crusher run. That will hopefully be a good base for a monolithic style garage we plan in a year or two.

The rest of the driveway we used 3 inch minus crushed concrete, again done in lifts, topped of with 3/4 minus ground asphalt. The soggiest area, at the bottom of a small hill, was dug down and geotextile was put down then topped of with the crushed concrete and ground asphalt.

That has held up really well. The ground asphalt crushes down and forms almost a solid surface especially if you drive back and forth on it on a really hot day (+100).

My only problem has been when we left for a week got 30 inches of snow and I had to 4- wheel to get up the drive. Then I used that route for where to plow. Part of the way up to the house I was 6 ft off the driveway. Next year posts along the side so I know where my driveway is.