Need advice for driveway repair/sloping/drainage

[mrennie]

First of all I do alot of drainage work, not so much with gravel driveways as mostly paved around here.

I can see the obvious spring summer and fall problems, but that extreme winter heaving has me a little stumped. And I have never heard of putting insulation under the surface of the driveway, It most be common where you are but I never even heard of it. So take any advice from me with a grain of salt, what ever that means

Looking at your plan I would say yes you need to remove that clay that is expanding so much when frozen. but I'm guessing 12" may not be enough.
I THINK you might be able to do away with the insulation if you went deeper removing the clay, at least 2 feet. I know it's alot more work, but if you can put it on your own property you could save a little there. You may even get away without that drainage matrix under the driveway, though I'm all for drainage systems. Maybe shape the clay when you get down as far as you are going to a swale just about where it is now and run a perforated pipe across the driveway at that point. The first 8 inches on top of the clay would be a uniform sized aggregate like 1 inch. the shaped clay to the low point and the loose stone would allow water to flow towards that drain line at the lowest point.

We would normally look closer at the point of last defence and try to install an all season drainage system across the front of the garage/mudroom.
You mentioned bringing the pipe out back to discharge, it would need to exit to daylight, if your winters are as bad as you say I imagine there is not alot of daylight near the surface of the ground out there in the winter?
So that brings up other challenges making sure the end of the pipe isn't frozen when you need it.

Again, these thoughts are not based on local experience, so be skeptical.

JB

Hi JB

Insulating under a drievway is not terribly common here but is done on occasion as a way to fix problems with clay heaving. With respect to bringing the drain out to daylight, that isn't possible as the field would have at least 2' and possibly up to 4' of snow cover from January to April.

I agree that going deeper and removing more clay might eliminate the need for insulation, but I have insufficient experience to know how deep the tradeoff is....and my thinking was that the less deep I go the less concern there is about messing with the underground cables.

I am getting a locate in a week or so, once that is done I can hand dig and determine how shallow they really are and that might help shape the project (pun intended!)

 

[Haoleguy]

Mrennie - I think JB is giving good advice as the rock/stone depth will help with heaving and allow drainage to move towards a perforated pipe and then to lower ground. I don't buy the styrofoam insulation trick. To me it seems that will ensure water to puddle as it cannot penetrate. As a suggestion I might consider a heavier weight geotextile under the stone course to diminish heaving...... You might talk to the supervisor in your town's highway department about your problem to get local advice...... It seems very important to your situation to remove snow from the driveway religiously and move it to the low side. JB also brought up the point of frozen pipe. The surface will thaw faster than just below the ground and thus keeping it closer to the surface the entire length it will thaw faster. Greater pitch will also allow it to drain faster and thus not accumulate water. I know that companies often put a heating element under the sidewalks to avoid icing and horse owners use simple heating elements for watering pails in winter....I wonder if there is a cheap alternative for your use in there. Just thinking out loud. Personally I don't think your far off from solving your problem with the suggestions given by others. By the way if you can calculate/guestimate the amount of water entering that flood area in a worst case scenario that would be helpful to gauge your solutions.....Gary

 

[Haoleguy]

Don't forget to locate all underground utilities!

 

[boggen]

well poo.... ya ran out to how far you can drain to.

next best thing is to pump the water out.

i would say, go ahead and setup your drainage system. around your drive way, and also in front of your garage. but instead of running pipe across your yard and to the field. dig down and instal "sump" and then a "sump pump" or "trash pump" that has a "float switch" making sure that the float switch can be installed below the lowest pipe you have. in your drainage system.

from the pump you can then pump water to were ever you want. to the field, to other side of house and yard. to a sewer system possibly. doesn't really matter.

the sump could be 55 gallon drum. cut out the top (do not cut the top off) but cut out the top leaving 1" or so of lip around the top edge. this will help keep the drum from caving in and warping over time. and then drill hole or holes through side of drum for your drianage pipes and pipe from pump and then get a bulkhead or uniseal and drill holes. ((google search koi pond to find cheaper places for bulkheads or "uniseals")) or goto Koiphen.com and then goto "construction forum" many DIY filters are made out of 55 gallon drums along with many Sumps. ((folks have to remove waste from there filters that set low in the ground and the use same like setup as what i am describing to ya to pump waste water up and out of the ground to were ever the want to send it.))

as far as actually creating your "drainage system" my only main worries for you are, is making sure you have enough rock over top of the perforated pipe. so if a heavy vehicle or tractor with a full load goes over it. you will not crack and bust the pipe.

also if you are going to go through this much trouble. you can pick up PEX tubing fairly cheap. and at some later time, could hook this tubing up to say a water heater or a boiler. and have yourself a nice "ice melting" driverway setup. that you could setup on a timer / temp guage to turn on and melt snow / ice off driveway. so no need to go out and shovel it. in another way of saying it, you could have a radianted heated driveway. granted it would be nicer to have it your floors of your house. but... that is another issue.

only reason i bring above up. you will already be placing in alot of rock and a drainage system. to remove ice and snow and water. ya might as well keep that water heated up long enough to fully drain to the sump and be pumped away to some higher spot. and have a nice driveway to go out to in mornings and when you come home at night.

i should take above back, i am not sure how that will work with just a rock driveway, if it was a concrete driveway area. it might be a different story.

 

[PGBiodiesel]

I think you may have the best solution right here. Raise the house up. Heck, add 1 or 2 courses of block, insulate like the rest of it, and then you can regrade your driveway as desired with fill. Get some quotes from house movers, and you may be surprised how cheap it will be to do. Otherwise you are running into too many constraints in trying to fit the ground to the house elevation.

I agree with this completely.

It appears you live in a very flat, poorly drained area.
The soil must hold a large amount of water to get that much frost heave.

Best solution would be to raise all structures above the road level, then grade the soil to drain away from the buildings.

It can be done.
In a town near here they raised 3 brick buildings 5' straight up, built a new foundation 4' high and set them back down.

When I was in New Orleans a couple of years ago, hundreds(perhaps thousands) of homes had been raised a few feet. Hundreds had been raised high enough to park under.

Years ago I worked on a house that had just a small fruit cellar/storm shelter under it. We dug it out, braced it as we went and put a full basement under it, while the people continued to live in it.
The biggest piece of equipment we had was a conveyor we slid down into the hole we dug. The dump truck was borrowed from the guy that wanted the fill.

I'll say again it can be done.

Mud jackers can raise alot of weight, maybe another option.

Goodluck

 

[Hunchback]

I had the same problem as you as the concrete contractor poured the garage floor too low when I had a few more stalls added on. The ground would rise up about 12 inches with the frost in the ground. When the snow would melt off the roof or we had an early rain it would run to the lowest point which was inside the garage. I first scraped off a foot of dirt with the scraper blade keeping a grade like you have started. I have a small backhoe but I have so many underground utilities I was afraid I would hit something so I dug my trench by hand.

I dug the trench 24 inches deep by the width of a shovel for 40 feet with pitch and then dug with the hoe 100 feet back to a low spot. I installed 4 inch corrugated plastic with "Y" to gutter down spouts tied in. Covered with a sock and filled with crushed gravel. It drains and doesn't heave. If you are worried the drain will freeze install a roof melt heating tape through the drain and turn it on when the snow starts melting.

Good Luck

 

[Egon]

Frost heaving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some information on frost heaves.

For frost heaves you basically have three conditions that must be met. Soil that will allow capillary action for water , water present and freezing conditions. Take any one out of the equation and there will be no frost heave. [ Note: my Son just explained this to me]

For the OP digging down to frost level and replacing with larger granular material may be the answer. Insulation barriers will also help.:thumbsup: