Making Gravel Driveways Last

[rswyan]

I'm almost done with my driveway/road project. It involved removing and relocating my old driveway, which was asphalt, and extending the road it connects to. Since I'm the only person that lives on the road, the local road super didn't really care what I did with it.

The areas that it now runs over vary quite a bit so I had to do different things in different places. For the road extension (250') I excavated about 8" or 10" of top soil and then piled the old asphalt in - there were some pretty large chunks - say 2' x 2' x 6" - it was so uneven that there was no way you could drive over it initially. Had a fellow with a good sized Komatsu dozer come in and drive over it and smash it up. This worked really well and by the time he was done (a couple of hours) you could drive over it no problem - ground it up real well and made the surface fairly smooth and even. It ended up being probably 8" to 10" thick. I then topped this with a couple of inches of crusher run (3/4" to fines with lots of fines) to smooth it out a little more and to provide lots of fines to fill in any voids and lock things together.

On the portion of the driveway that connects to the road I didn't have to remove the topsoil nearly as deep - it starts on high ground at the road, on a little bit of a ridge and runs down the ridge, and the topsoil was not nearly as thick - a couple of inches down it had a nice clean yellow clay layer. For this section I used geotextile with a layer of No. 2 gravel (approximately fist-sized) about 4" to 7" thick, and then covered with several inches of crusher run.

At the bottom, there's a split in the driveway - one leg runs over and connects to the existing drive just in front of the house and the other leg runs over to the new polebarn (more or less continuing on down the ridge)

The portion that connects to the house was a little problematic - it was a low spot (drainage) that had been collecting topsoil for the last thirty years or so - this leg will probably recieve quite a bit of water just from seepage thru the ground, so I need to cut in a diversion ditch on the upslope side. I dug the topsoil out in this section to depth of 16"+ and then backfilled it with a considerable amout of clay, laid down geoxtex, laid in about 10" of bankrun gravel (very large rocks to fines - it's now above the surrounding grade and the bankrun fairly sandy so it should drain. Several inches of crusher run on top. Depending on how it looks this spring I may lay in more of the old asphalt and have Roger come back out with dozer and crush it up and pack it in.

The section that leads down to the polebarn is built just like the portion that runs down the ridge.

I've had tandem dump trucks (60,000 lbs loaded) run over it repeatedly and it's been totally solid - except for the section where it runs over and connects to the old part by the house. The one time I tried to have them backup over that the guy nearly stuck it (went in up to his axles) - but then it had been pretty wet for awhile at that point. Hopefully it will have firmed up some by the time spring rolls around.

 

[Highbeam]

Folks, when you have a driveway section that uses more than one size or type of rock what happens when you go to grade it out after a year or two. Does the implement rip the big rock out or do you go to great pains to stay within that topcoat of material? Seems if you have a pothole or something you would cut into the bottom stuff while trying to repair it.

 

[JimMorrissey]

Yep, geotextile is key to long life. If you really want a good road, get the fabric down then the 3" - crushed stone, the cap it with 3/4" crushed stone.

 

[beowulf]

I have been reading this post with considerable interest as my wife has said that all of my own projects have to wait until I fix our driveway. We have 900 feet with a slope - I would guess it drops about 15' -20' over the 900' length. This is in California foothills where we get no rain from May thru August and not a lot in Sept or April. Usually about 16" or so the rest of the year (though this year only 3 and a half inches total to date). I don't think we want to lay the fabric all of that distance or do all of the recommended courses - I have put down just gravel in other level areas with some success. I will crown the road and put in small ditches on each side to carry away the rain on down the slope of the road. My questions: what if someone put a french drain about every 50 feet perpendicular to the road and emptying into the ditches; and does one fill these ditches with rock or gravel? The ditches will be about 9 to 12 ' deep and I thought that if I filled them with gravel as well and had a berm on the outside of the ditches I would get drainage as well as have a berm to hold my gravel on the road. Maybe these are dumb ideas, but I don't think I can afford, and may not need the excavation of a foot and putting in clay and so on. Thoughts?

 

[inveresk]

Beowulf, I found this a useful resource. Camp roads

 

[Egon]

beowulf:

Think of where the water comes from, must finally end up, how long a run it has and the potential for washing out dirt. Then you can start planning your drainage system.

The nature of your soil should also determine where and if textile is required.

Egon