Gravel Driveway Advice

[MMH]

I need to rebuild my gravel driveway. I bought the house a year ago & knew that the driveway was in bad shape, but cannot go thru another winter withthe driveway as is.

The driveway is about 300' long & 10' wide. It has not been maintained over the years & there is very little stone. Most of the stone has been beat down to fines. Also, the driveway has a good slope to it an sits below the land on both sides of it. when it rains hard, the water runs right down the driveway & cuts ravines in it.

Overtime I know that I need to get some ditches cut to the sides of the driveway so that the water will flow in the ditches & not in the driveway. Short term I am thinking about just adding stone. I would put down 4" of unwashed #3 or #4 (stone up to 4") and then 2" of 2B (unwashed #57) as a topcoat. Would this work short term? What do I really need to do long term?

 

[tnmike]

I have a mile long gravel drive to my house. Speaking from experience the first thing you need to do is get the water off the road. I have several places like you where the lay of the land makes it hard do. Waterbreaks are the answer. This will allow you to ditch one side which is a bonus. You can make a trough out of treated wood or use sections of guard rail layed at and angle down hill. These are buried in the road flush with the surface of course. If the road has been neglected I would use some pretty large stone first to get a good base and let it winter in before I went to the graded stone.

I have several water breaks made from 2x6 treated on the sides and 2x4 treated on the bottom. I put steel straps in several places in the top edge to keep it from collapsing. Its just wide enough to get a garden rake into for clean out. I've had these in place for ten years and they work great. The guard rail idea is something I want to try but havent.

 

[Jerry/MT]

I need to rebuild my gravel driveway. I bought the house a year ago & knew that the driveway was in bad shape, but cannot go thru another winter withthe driveway as is.

The driveway is about 300' long & 10' wide. It has not been maintained over the years & there is very little stone. Most of the stone has been beat down to fines. Also, the driveway has a good slope to it an sits below the land on both sides of it. when it rains hard, the water runs right down the driveway & cuts ravines in it.

Overtime I know that I need to get some ditches cut to the sides of the driveway so that the water will flow in the ditches & not in the driveway. Short term I am thinking about just adding stone. I would put down 4" of unwashed #3 or #4 (stone up to 4") and then 2" of 2B (unwashed #57) as a topcoat. Would this work short term? What do I really need to do long term?

Ditching the sides and cambering the roadbed (sloping the roadbed so the center of it is slightly higher than the edges)so that the water runs into the ditches is a good place to start.
Whether you want to add that big of rock to an existing roadbed is hard to tell from here. If the road bed is pretty solid maybe some 1-1/4 minus crushed rock will work to get you going and then going to 3/4" minus next year if the 1-1/4 inch minus works.

If you were starting from scratch, 3-4 inch shot rock woud be a good base followed by 1-1/4" minus.

You might as someone who builds roads in the area to look at it and give you some advice.

 

[radioman]

well-- without pics, it would be hard to tell you what you need to do. But it looks like you may need to do regrading with a boxblade and tilt feature. Have you studied your driveway and watch how the water runs on your driveway and where you can peak or slope it so water runs to a ditch/swale area ?

 

[tnmike]

All good ideas. Get outside in a pouring rain and make a map of where the water is coming from and where it is going. When the sun comes back out you can have a plan. My suggestion about the water breaks works where you cannot ditch both sides of the road due to slope or space. If you can ditch both sides and crown the road that is the way to go.

In some cases if the road is very steep, ditches and crowing will not work and you have to resort to the breaks.

 

[forgeblast]

I have used tent pegs to mark areas that needed to be built up when its raining.

 

[CowwFace]

@MMH,

Great advice from the guys above for sure .. I'd just add: make sure to know where/if the Phone lines etc are buried before you start to make the ditches ... Trust me!!

Tractor on,

 

[teg]

I need to rebuild my gravel driveway. ...there is very little stone...

This seems like a good time to get it right. Or how many more times are you planning to rebuild the road?

Do it right or piss away more $$$ on gravel that will wash away. Once you get ditches cut in and use the dirt to build up the driveway the right way, hopefully, you'll only need to gravel once more.

I wish I made my driveways much wider... with larger ditches. I'll have to deal with that someday too.

 

[EddieWalker]

If you just add enough road base rock to the driveway, you can build up a crown and get the water off of the road.

Road base has a variety of names all over the country, but the basics are the same for it no matter where it is. You want rock of a variety of sizes that range from a couple of inch stones mixed in with everything down to fine particles. It has to have jagged edges to it and not contain anything round or smooth. It needs to be all mixed together. It should be of a hard stone that wont crumble over time or with normal usage. Where I live, limestone is used, but even knowing it's limestone, the different quarries have different quality of stone and hardness. Some will fall apart fairly quickly, and it's terrible for roads.

Once spread and compacted, NEVER grade it or smooth it out again. The reason roads fail is after they are compacted, somebody decided to uncompact it by dragging a box blade over it, or even worse, something that breaks it up and then dragging a box blade over it. All this does is destroy your road faster then if you did nothing.

When your gravel road has a crown and is compacted, it will shed water and support extremly heavy loads. It will lock together and last a decade or more.

If you get a pot hole, add more road base to that area. NEVER destroy the surrounding area to try and make it as bad as the pothole. ADD MORE GRAVEL to the low area!!!!!

Spend the money to get what you need and you wont have to mess with it again.

Eddie

 

[cmyoung2]

The only thing I would add to the above advice. If there are any areas that don't have a very solid base, I would take everything down another 8", put a layer of geotextile ground cloth down, then add grave to level it back up. The ground cloth prevents the gravel from sinking, makes a very durable road. We use it for livestock paths and stream crossings, and it lasts for years under heavy traffic on steep grades. Imagine 300 dairy cows coming to the barn twice a day, heavy use area.
Good luck, get it right the first time