Moving Choice - Gravel Road

[Spanky1000]

We are considering purchasing a home or home building site in SE Michigan with 10 plus acres and are looking a most locations that require use of gravel roads for access. We have only lived in homes that had paved roads up to this point and would like to get help understanding what issues we could face making the decision to move to a gravel serviced property. Most of the places we are considering require a 1 to 4 mile final drive on gravel county roads to access paved roads. Some of the gravel roads have chloride applied in the summer to keep dust down. Most are graded during the summer to re-level the washboard/hole that come with the winter to spring freeze thaw rain damage. My current thought is the vehicles will never be clean and the the winter snow and ice clean up by the county road crews will leave us with some days that are challenging to get to the main road. Like to get the groups thoughts in making the choice to live on gravel roads.

Thanks you

Wayne

 

[randy41]

i drive my school bus on gravel roads all the time....well not during summer. it is dusty.....very dusty. many people that live on them have trouble keeping their windows open. but they are generally very private.

 

[hockeypuck]

Make sure you are far enough off of the road so the dust does not get in you house, ect.. Buy a light colored car (silver, gold, white, light green) it does not show the dust as much and buy a york rake!

 

[RayH]

Do you own trucks or SUVs? If not, its time to get them.
As youve already stated, your vehicles will never remain clean.
If your house is close to the road, it wont be clean either.
Expect, and be prepared, to get yourself out during snow events, you're last on the counties list..
Check the deed before you buy to make sure you arent responible for maintenance of the road.
Make sure the road is sufficient enough to allow the construction equipment you need to build.

 

[Travelover]

I live off a gravel road in SE Michigan. Biggest pain is that the car is always dirty, especially if it has rained recently and the garage floor is always dirty because the car tires track in the dirt, or it drops off.

Benefits are less traffic by the house and generally slower speeds. Sometimes the county is slow to smooth out the potholes, but I just do the job with my tractor, at least in my sub.

 

[coachgrd]

One positive aspect of dirt road living is that you become a wonderful weather prognosticator...when they grade your road, you can bet your bottom dollar rain is on it's way.

At least that's the way it works here...

 

[sawdust_maker]

Everybody else is saying the gravel road will be dusty, that your car will never be clean. For a different point of view...

We live on a gravel/dirt road in upstate NY. Yes, it helps to have a Subaru in the winter. But the car does not get that dirty. Just driving around in the winter up here is the cause of most of the junk on our cars. Most of the winter our road is frozen over anyway, so no problem.

It gets a little dusty in the spring before they put down the calcium chloride. But even with that, we walk our (white) dog 4-6 miles a day on this road, EVERY day of the year. (Ok, we skip a day or so when they put down the CaCl.) Still not a problem. Most days we don't even need to clean off her paws.

Maintenance? Our road is a mile long. A couple of us do most of the maintenance on the road, in not much time. Its even been argued that a few extra potholes are good - they keep the traffic slow.

Living on a country lane is a bit different from the suburban home we had 8 years ago. Yes, we had sidewalks there, and mail delivery to our front door. But moving here is a choice we happily made, and one we would not hesitate to make again.

John

 

[Z-Michigan]

I made a similar move last fall, having always lived in suburbia and urbia before that, always on paved roads. I'm also just south of Lansing, so less than two hours away depending where you're looking.

Others have noted all the big issues. Cars will get dirty instantly, and will never stay clean. If you love sports cars or sport motorcycles - dirt road will not work well for you. However, if it's just transportation, plan to get an 4wd SUV, pickup, or AWD car (like a Subaru) and you will be fine. Our roads are plowed fairly well in winter, though not as fast as main highways. About as fast as subdivision roads though, maybe even faster. The road does accumulate washboard which is very nasty, and the county is erratic about regrading to remove it. We have a Jeep and a 4wd pickup and have no significant problems. Beware of snow drifts if there's any little hill - I got the Jeep stuck in over a foot of snow once this past winter. A large 4x4 pickup or decent sized MFWD tractor will be a big plus to pull out any stuck vehicles - whether your own, neighbors, or people who shouldn't be driving on your road but were anyway.

My house is 900' back from the road and I haven't noticed any dust issues. That would be different if I was 50' from the road!

Country roads are prime areas for local teen hoodlums to knock over mailboxes. Get used to it, or establish a neighborhood watch akin to that in "Hot Fuzz".

 

[sawdust_maker]

Country roads are prime areas for local teen hoodlums to knock over mailboxes. Get used to it, or establish a neighborhood watch akin to that in "Hot Fuzz".

An alternative is the one we took - a PO box works well. Since the roadside mailbox location for our house would have been 0.8 miles away from our house anyway, the PO box was a simple choice. So what if it is now 8 miles away? We drive right by it when we go out. We have a large box, so picking up the mail overy 3-5 days is no problem. And if we go away for a week or so, so what? The local hoodlums cannot knock over our PO box, nor can anyone steal our mail, something that has happened around here.

If there is a downside, it is that we now have two addresses to deal with. UPS/FED EX still deliver to the street address.

John

 

[Red55]

Our private road was gravel for the longest time- Didn't ready notice the dirt on the cars but the noise was very annoying. . . neighbors had no problem doing 30mph+ (especially the "younger" ones) Lots of dust that always made it to the house. Really glad that we finally paved and that it was before oil & backtop went thru the roof. The mailbox solution -used a piece of cast water pipe cut it to right size and now they can swing at it all they want. A friend of mine loosely attached his mailbox so it falls off with min damage. ED