Gravel Driveway - reduce/control aggregate movement

[oosik]

I have a mile long driveway. It's all gravel. Top six inches, or so - 1" minus. It took a while - but it eventually "set up" hard as concrete. Plus the dust, dirt and volcanic ash that blows onto the driveway.

I have never had to add new material. Just keep blading it up from the edges and respreading it.

 

[Rockbadchild]

In order to achieve proper compaction quickly, one need to saturate the material with water and compact it with a compactor. This only goes for material containing dust, no point doing that with pure stone.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Not if the base below it is not solid /stiff enough. The tar will crack, and the "chips" aka pea gravel comes loose.

All the best,

Peter

The OP stated that is was originally tar and chip. Easy to make the leap that the base is suitable. Pea gravel chipping is a minor variation to get different color blends.

 

[Dftodd]

If you want your driveway to pack, then you need to use something besides pea stone.

I use SB2 for my driveways. It's fines up to 1" stone. And once packed, it gives a smooth solid surface that doesn't go anywhere.

It's basically the stuff that comes out of the crusher before getting sifted.

 

[LD1]

Uniform stone dont compact and stay well without something to bind. AS others have said you need something with some dust content.

Lots of people dont like the dust for a top coat. It "can" be messy when it rains and gets tracked in the house.

For a uniform stone topcoat....gotta be thin. And needs to be a crushed stone and not pea gravel. Limestone is what most use around here. Either #8 size which is pea gravel size (3/8") but its crushed limestone or #57 size which is ~3/4" sized crushed limestone

 

[ruffdog]

I agree that you need fines to lock in the gravel. Even with fines or a binder, a round stone like pea gravel won't lock in like an irregular shaped stone (like crushed). Trying to pack pea gravel is like trying to herd cats.

 

[Torvy]

I think we have a rare moment of consensus here. I like pea gravel for things like gardens (around cacti and such) or low traffic walkways to look pretty. Too shifty for lots of walking or any vehicle traffic.

Thank all y'all for the advice. We are about to bring in some rock once the dang contractor finally finishes the house.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Afternoon snpower,
My DW is about 800 ft long and one section is fairly steep, about 200 or 250 ft. I just put down 1 1/4” to 1 1/2” crushed process ! Anything much smaller just won’t hold on the steep section ! Up here in Vermont they call it surepack, and it comes out of Wallingford, Vt. So we graded the DW and then spred 5 triaxle loads of material, regraded and then rolled it !! It’s not cheap, but I’m hoping that it will hold better than the finer material !

 

[paulsharvey]

Your in a kinda bad situation, that unfortunately, you kinda put yourself in. You should have had someone shoot tack on your chip seal surface, and spread a single layer of pea gravel on top, bonding the top to the existing surface. Now, you have a smoothish surface, with round, loose, uniform grade material on top of. You Could have it tacked again, but thats going to have a hard time getting everything bonded, and would take a very heavy application. If it's in a pretty isolated area, not the entire drive, can you remove the pea rock down to the chip seal? If it's the entire drive, what you need to do is get more 'grades' or sizes of aggregate to help create a better material. Depending on local materials, some sand-clay, ball field clay, would be spread, and then work that in with the pea rock.

 

[paulsharvey]

You might check if granite screenings are available locally, and work that into the pea rock. It won't 100% fix the issue, but it should Help stabalize it. It's often sold as brick paver base, and it's a probably dust to 1/8" aggerate.