Lane materials-gravel substitute

[yanmars]

I have to put in a 2000 foot, ten feet wide lane. The gravel and trucking could run about $10,000. Is there any decent substitute? If a black top road was ground off would the asphalt give a decent base? Washer run etc. The top soil will be bulldozed out and I would like to have a 8 or 9 inch base initially. Thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Also I need to string electric that far also, poles are cheaper but I can use schedule 40 PVC that is at least 2 1/2 in diameter. Any reasonable source for that also. Thanks

 

[vtsnowedin]

Actually $10,000 sounds about right and you haven't mentioned ditching and cross culverts. For 2000 feet the electric should be on poles that belong to the utility and on their side of the transformer. Not that you won't have to pay the full cost of them but then you are not paying for the line loss forever. I don't have current prices but make sure your sitting down when you open the estimate envelope.

 

[smiley]

You're talking about 5-600 cu yds of material so I'd get a price fro several suppliers and rent a dozer for a day or two and have at it. Unless you're in a very dry climate where you might get away with clay, I can't think of anything cheaper than run of bank gravel. If you have a shale bed close by that may or may not be cheaper. A problem with shale can be that if it stays wet, heavy traffic can turn it back into clay. I will give you a tip on asphalt millings, we used to give them away but now with the price of oil, they usually go back to the plant and are reprocessed. They work good as long as you don't put them in too thick. We put in over 1 ft in one of our employees driveway and it worked good until the weather got hot. One sunny summer afternoon in the 90's, it absorbed so much heat, it got soft and his car sunk in about 2 inches. We pulled all the millings out put in gravel and retopped it with about 4 inches of the millings and it worked fine.

 

[paulharvey]

I work for a county engineering department in florida, and for drive ways and minor side streets 6" of rock is standard. Asphalt millings or RAP as its technically called makes a very good bases material. Trucking will perhaps be your biggest factor, if there is an asphalt plant near by you would have far less trucking, but around my area asphalt millings go for about $10 per ton, and limerock goes for $6 per ton. I wouldnt go 10" thick if I where you, thats what we use on real roads with major traffic. I figure you need ~650 tons (100# per square yard per inch) for millings. Ball field clay or sand clay is an option but it tends to get slimy in rain. Road base/ball field clay runs $3~4 per ton around here. I have seen longer driveways that they put 4~6" of clay and then capped with millings. Most of this depends on what is available to you locally. Trucking ia going to be mear $50 per hour or even more, so if you have too compare all your.options.

 

[paulharvey]

You also didnt mention how you are going to compact your base. If I where you I would look into renting a small maybe 4 ton vibrotory roller. You can push the base well with the dozer but tracks wont do a good job compacting. I do realize as you back trucks over the previosly pushed base they will do a lot of the work for you, but thick you may want to looking into a roller. Keep a nice crown on the base to avoid water sitting on it, and dont get too cheap skimping on drainage. If you think you might need a culvert now is the time.m

 

[RDrancher]

Material where you're at is less expensive then it is here!

I agree with paulharvey, 9" is pretty thick for a rural lane. And like smiley said, millings are getting pretty expensive around here too. I think you'd be fine with 5-6" as long as the material has enough fines for good compaction, but that's still a bit thick for asphalt millings. If you can swing it, a woven geotextile will save you money in the long run, so you might look at that too. Drainage is very important, so I would also be looking at areas that may require cross-drainage. As far as the PVC, check with electrical and landscape supply houses in your area and compare prices to the big box stores.

 

[Red Horse]

My two cents- As someone said-you are not building an Interstate. I think key is get the loam out first-and if it's nice stuff, that is worth money so that is not lost effort. 6"-8" of good bank run gravel or what is known here in New England as graded base-that is typically 3/4" crushed stone mixed with stone dust- no voids and it compacts well. A decent Vib roller is key- and if you can put your base down in two "lifts"-i.e. if 6" ,two at 3" etc.

And that could work as your final if funds are limited right now. I too am a big fan of asphalt millings. They were very reasonable until the state of Mass. changed asphalt specs and allowed plants to use as much as 30% millings in new mix. One big outfit near me won't sell it to you anymore-instead they willsell a 1/3 blend of millings, ground shingles,and ground concrete- makes a goodbase, but not a top surface. We do have another operator that will sell it but at 12 bucks a ton. On the plus side, they run it through a crusher and guarantee a 3/4" minus making it nice towork with. The stuff that comes righjt off the millig machine can contain some big "bones" that are a pain to deal with ifyou are trying to spread 2-3 inches.

I just did my 22 year old 500+ foot gravel driveway this fall and was lucky as a friend of mine who is a paving contractor had a good supply of millings that he gave me (I have a big IOU). I was also lucky enough tohave access to an 8' Landpride landscape rake and that did a great job. Also borrowed a small Vibe roller. Only negative, did not have enough good warm sun which really helps in the compaction. So late spring I will haul in a load or two of the 3/4 minus stuff and dress the top.

 

[cockeyedMFer]

Here in southern Ohio we've got some pretty hard clay that packs well. Most of our 600' barn driveway was done with broken up concrete - chunks from fist size to 6 or 8" diameter by 4" thick. They were laid out as flat as possible, then topped with bank run gravel. The bank run is fine sandy material with river stone mixed in. Packs very well and we had almost no issues with sinking or moving, even with large dump trucks running over it. At the time we had a contractor working for us who needed to get rid of a lot of broken up driveways, and had a breaker hammer on his bobcat, so it was pretty convenient. The total depth is less than 6".

Another portion was done with #304 sized crushed concrete from a commercial recycler. Its not quite as good as limestone - there's a lot of smooth stone in concrete that doesn't pack as well. On inclines we ended up with #2 limestone and #57 limestone on top. The barn sits about 12' downhill from the drive and when pulling a heavy trailer up the hill, anything but limestone would just spin out.

A note on the road fabric - We tried that too in one area of the drive, but unless you're going a foot deep or more, or you've got really soft soil, it won't work well. Stone tends to lay on top of the fabric and peel off or spin out, rather than pack in really tight.

 

[smiley]

A note on the road fabric - We tried that too in one area of the drive, but unless you're going a foot deep or more, or you've got really soft soil, it won't work well. Stone tends to lay on top of the fabric and peel off or spin out, rather than pack in really tight.

We've put down many thousands of yards of the geotextile fabric and I agree with cockeyed. You generally need a foot on top and unless subsoil conditions are bad and pumping up through, it's not necessary. You wouldn't have the problem in a 1' roadbed but stone can slip on very steep slopes. We lost over 100 tons rip rapping an extremely steep spillway. The design called for the fabric and everyone but the designers knew what would happen. The rocks wouldn't knit into the hillside sitting on top of the fabric. Within 5 minutes of releasing the water into it, about 100 tons of stone and many tons of dirt was in one lane of the state highway below.

 

[RDrancher]

We've put down many thousands of yards of the geotextile fabric and I agree with cockeyed. You generally need a foot on top and unless subsoil conditions are bad and pumping up through, it's not necessary. You wouldn't have the problem in a 1' roadbed but stone can slip on very steep slopes. We lost over 100 tons rip rapping an extremely steep spillway. The design called for the fabric and everyone but the designers knew what would happen. The rocks wouldn't knit into the hillside sitting on top of the fabric. Within 5 minutes of releasing the water into it, about 100 tons of stone and many tons of dirt was in one lane of the state highway below.

Now THAT would have been a sight to see!