Gravel Driveway Re-hab

[alexcocco]

wvbill
where are you in the mountain state, i grew up there graduated from wvu, montani sepre libri

alex

 

[WVBill]

Alex:

I'm in Summit Point in the Eastern Panhandle - about 200 yards from the Virginia state line. I'm a newcomer - only been here 2 years but love it!

 

[putty340]

hello Harv, I dont claim to know about road building. I built my road about 2 yrs ago, I just raised the road with the rock ,that way you wont have to worry about flooding. I didnt bother scraping the top off because it was about 5 feet thick of soft topsoil, I just laid down a 6 in. layer of pit run (4-5 in. rock),drove on it, than a foot thick of what we call 3/4 crush to lock it together. I figured I would have to add more rock after a while but it has not even shown any signs of deteriorating . I guess it depends on your money/time situation , I think puting fabric down if your not going to pave is overkill. (that stuff is spendy!)

 

[Harv]

Eric -

Glad you licked your problem. Sounds like you wound up with a nice solid road. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I may wind up "raising" my road some, but as near as I can tell, the soft soil that turns into a wet sponge, in my case, is only about a foot deep at the worst spot and gradually firms up over the next hundred feet or so. It might very well be futile to try to remove it, but I guess I should make some more sample digs to see what's really down there.

Your use of large rock (pit run), topped off with finer stuff coincides pretty well with what others have suggested, so the only controversy we have left is the fabric. Some of our learned colleagues claim that without fabric, the mud will eventually squish its way up through the rock, leaving you back where you started. You may have overcome that problem by raising the level of your road high enough to prevent this from happening.

<font color=blue>I think puting fabric down if your not going to pave is overkill. (that stuff is spendy!)</font color=blue>

When it comes to projects like this, I'm a strong believer in overkill. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I've been quoted prices as low as $250 for a 12ft x 300 foot roll. Sounds like pretty reasonable insurance to me. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[gerard]

Gotta agree with using the fabric. The cost you quoted is about the same I've seen and when you look at the total project cost in time and money it's pretty small. I'd rather do it right ONCE, especially if you plan on owning the land for awhile. (Just remember to excavate a trench where the fabric starts and bury the end, helps anchor it in place until you get sufficient cover on top when leveling)

 

[WVBill]

Harv:

Where did you find the fabric? I don't think it's a Home Depot type item and was wondering where to start looking.

Is this the same as the fabric they sell for controling weeds in flower gardens?
Somebody once mentioned using silt fence - an option?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by WVBill on 02/07/01 01:42 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[cowboydoc]

Have to disagree with you on the fabric putty generally. If a person had no moisture in the ground, the road wasn't going to be used much for heavy traffic, etc. maybe. I would never build a road without that fabric again. The roads I have built with it I have had to do no maintenance at all with it. The ones without I just keep adding more gravel every year. This year I'm going to redo as much as I can with roads I've already done because I'm tired of filling in with gravel. It allows for drainage, won't break down and if a person ever has a water problem down the road it won't let your sink into the ground. You more than save for the cost of the fabric with having to put down less gravel and future maintenance. I completely understand it worked good for you but I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from using it. At $200-250 for a 300ft. roll that is only a couple loads of rock so I don't think that it's cost prohibitive at all. In Harv's case he's trying to fill in a chronically muddy area and he will be pouring rock into that hole for years without the fabric. Just my two cents and experience with it.

 

[markcg2000]

Cowboydoc,
I went back and re-read the Redoing drive to Chicken house thread. You talked about the fabric there, too, but did you ever find any Web sites for it?

<font color=green>mark</font color=green>

 

[markcg2000]

I can be awfully lazy somedays, can't I?

How to Geotextile

Some suppliers

/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

<font color=green>mark</font color=green>

 

[MarkV]

Bill, sounds like were on the same page. I just misunderstood the total plan when I read it. As I have more and more of these darn "senior moments", more and more seems to slip by. Thanks for clearing my foggy thinking. Good luck with the project. Make sure you let us know how it works out.

The only other thought I had is if the perforated pipe will be strong enough to hold the load of say a gravel truck?

MarkV

 

[cowboydoc]

Mark,
I only had to pay about $150 a roll for a 12' by 300' roll but that was from a place called Contractor's Suppy. You have to be a contractor to buy from them but really all you need is a tax id #. My buddy that I bought the skidsteer from got this from me and I just called him to see where to get some more from and he told me that. Where you are should have a contracting supply store. He said to look under contractors and then supplies in the yellow pages. Hope that helps. Let me know if it doesn't and I will get you the number of the place here in Iowa.

 

[cowboydoc]

Bill,
Not the same stuff as what you put down to prevent weeds. This is much stronger than that stuff. I don't know how well a silt fence would work either. You can't even hardly tear this stuff. Have to cut it with utility knife.

 

[Harv]

Bill -

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner on where I found the fabric. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Although I haven't actually gotten any yet, I had contacted the same place I got my culvert pipe, which happens to be a contractor's plumbing supplier. Like Richard says, I imagine any kind of contractor's supply or road construction outfit can get it for you.

Since you asked, I've been playing phone tag with these people all day today, trying to get a current quote. I think it's going to be considerably more than Richard paid 'cuz I can't get stuff directly from this place -- I get the info and then order it from a nearby lumber yard where a friend of mine works. The lumber yard takes care of picking it up and delivering it to my property for 20 bucks above my friend's discount price.

 

[dmccarty]

WVBill,

I have seen corrogated black plastic pipe/culvert as small as 4 inches. I know they have 12inch stuff and it looks like they have 6 and 8 or10 inch pipe as well. Whether the small pipe will move the water is another question. I did not pay much attention to the pipe in the range from 4+ inches to less than 12. I'm going to use 12 inch culverts for the driveway/road intersection and most likely the perforated 4 inch pipe for a french drain.

My local farm supplier had a good supply of pipe at the best prices I could find.

Hope this helps...
Dan McCarty

 

[Harv]

One reason to use the largest culvert pipe you possibly can is that the smaller the diameter, the more prone it is to getting clogged, and the harder it is to clean out. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

At my property, leaves, branches and other debris are inevitably going to find their way to any culvert I put in. Right now, my smallest culvert is 12 inches, but I may soon have to employ some smaller stuff, same as you. I'm thinking I'd be wise to put some sort of screen arrangement at the inlet, but I'm worried that in a heavy rain the screen will get plugged up in no time.

Been fighting the same battle with my rain gutters for as long as I can remember. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

 

[gerard]

Have you considered putting some large rocks in a half moon a few feet in front of the entrance to the culvert pipe? It acts as a course screen, stops the big stuff and the water will run over the tops. The buildup is also readily removable and will take longer to buildup to blockage proportions than screening the entrance only. A small excavation in between would help even more and act as a "settling chamber" alowing fines and leaves to settle out instead of entering your pipe.

 

[Harv]

Gerard -

Haven't tried the rock/settling chamber approach yet, but I will now. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Thanks.

 

[roysallis]

Harv, I would definitely use the filter cloth. Also, you may want to install some rebar to help prevent objects from clogging the culvert. Go ahead and get that welder that you so desperately want and use it to make a grid out of the rebar. It would be good training on using the welder and how bad could you mess up on a project like this?

 

[Harv]

Roy -

Rebar is handy stuff, fer sure, but the culverts I have right now seem to be large enought to handle most of the debris, and they're short enough (10 feet) that they're easy to clean out.

If I wind up putting in some smaller diameter stuff, it will be plastic, which is much harder to weld rebar to. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

On the other hand, I do need an excuse to get the welder ...