Need help with driveway

[romanerin2011]

Hey everyone,

New to the forums and new to owning a tractor. I have a late 60s model ford 3000 diesel tractor with a 6' box blade and a 7' rear blade. Right now I'm using my neighbors 5' box blade as I have to do 10 pt turns with my heavy duty 6' if I'm not digging up dirt.

So to my driveway problems. Me and my wife just built us a house, and currently you have to walk to the house as they're really isn't a driveway. I was working the driveway with my box blade digging up hard clay by my pond and dragging it 600 or so ft to my driveway to make a good base. I sorts had it going my way until I bought my rear blade. I decided to cut in a ditch on one side, so I angle the blade as far forward as it would go and tilted it to dig in. Well it cuts a nice ditch but I brought in mud and water on to my somewhat decent road base, and now it's completely muddy. We've had a stupid amount of rain the passed few month which hasn't helped. I need some expert advice on how I can get my driveway operational. Should I just get my box blade and skim everything off and just bring in dump truck loads of dirt or what?

 

[PILOON]

A lot to consider building a drive.
Drainage is a major concern followed by a proper base.
You want coarse stone at bottom followed by fines for the finish.
Geotextile is now commonly used under the base layer of base as it prevents migration of silt and muck to the surface as well as acts like snowshoe to spread loading of the gravel base.
I'd suggest that first and foremost you want to get rid of all vegetation and topsoil B4 adding any road base.
Ask around as to what is commonly done in your area.

Once a base is established another common technique is to use re cycled asphalt for the finish.
My drive is close to 20 years and we simply dumped loads of asphalt chunks spread with a mini excavator and compacted with the dump truck wheels.
Today they shred the asphalt for an easier compaction.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Some pictures would really really help us out in giving you advice. Conditions and circumstances vary so much that we are all just guessing as to what needs you have.

 

[romanerin2011]

Well here's some photos. Hopefully I uploaded it right. MtnViewRanch do you live in mountain view ark? I got family up there.

 

[romanerin2011]

I guess it's hard to see by those. I took pictures of my ditch I dug in, my 2 culverts and the driveway itself.

 

[BuilderML]

I'll start by saying i have a 1200' driveway and fairly flat land. Which looks like what you have. Rule #1 your driveway can not be lower than surrounding area if you plan on keeping it gravel/dirt. Find what your finish driveway elevation will be. Remove organic material. Install your culverts in the low areas however many you will need to run across your driveway. Don't use small pipe try to go with 8"dia.min. Put in your ditch on the high side of the driveway,make the ditch wide enough and deep enough as once stuff starts growing it will fill in fast. Try to get your ditch to pitch towards the culverts if possible. If you can't no big deal water will find its level as long as your lower then the driveway. Which material you use to build up your driveway will depend on the depth of material you need to bring it up to finish height. Anything from 0-6" i like to use 3/4"minus. 6" and more i use 3" minus. I always us 3/4" minus to finish off the top. Compact away as your doing it. Let me say that if you can get away with grading the edge of your driveway versus ditches your much better off. By grading away i mean starting from the finish height of your driveway and blending down to the natural lay of the land. Makes it alot nicer to mow the sides if you plan on doing so. Also crowning the driveway or pitching to one side is needed. What i said above would be the basics it really all depends on the topography of your land. Enjoy your project. Also once you contaminate your driveway material with organic crap consider it wasted.

 

[romanerin2011]

Well it was building my base up with clay. And I did mix some crap dirt, mud, and water on my road when I was cutting in the ditches. There was really no way to keep from doing it. Also what is minus? Never heard of it. My plan was to build up road with clay then spread sb2 on top. Anyone got any tricks to drying a dirt road? And can someone point me to a good thread on rear blade use? What exactly is the purpose of a rear blade and having a good windrow going?

 

[romanerin2011]

Oh what you call minus I call sb2, looks about the same. Man how many loads of minus did you get to make you base? I was just going to build mine with clay and spread sb2 over it.

 

[k0ua]

You will discover that there are as many names for rock products as there are regions in the US. Many different names for the same thing.

To me 3/4 minus would be rocks that are 3/4 of an inch maximum on down to dust all mixed together. We call it 0 to 3/4 here.

Of course I don't have a clue what sb2 is...

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Well here's some photos. Hopefully I uploaded it right. MtnViewRanch do you live in mountain view ark? I got family up there.

I'm in Southern California, can't say that I have ever even been to Arkansas.

Well it was building my base up with clay. And I did mix some crap dirt, mud, and water on my road when I was cutting in the ditches. There was really no way to keep from doing it. Also what is minus? Never heard of it. My plan was to build up road with clay then spread sb2 on top. Anyone got any tricks to drying a dirt road? And can someone point me to a good thread on rear blade use? What exactly is the purpose of a rear blade and having a good windrow going?

My first thought is that the ground is way to wet. Sometimes you just need to wait.

Different reasons-applications for windrowing.

 

[romanerin2011]

Mercy, now that's a rear blade, how much that rig cost? I only have a 7' county line blade. I walked on the driveway earlier today to assess the damage and I can walk on the clay without sinking so maybe it just needs to dry out some. Hoping it'll be a little drier tomorrow. So I guess you use the windrow to spill the material into low spots? I see motor graders at work just haven't been taught or trained on them yet. Should I build the crown with dirt and rock or just rock? I'm afraid the way I installed my culverts will cause them to silt in over time.

 

[TomSeller]

I have clay in my soil in some areas and, while it is hard when dry, it is like mushy grease when wet. Don't you have any other soil better suited, or have some hauled in.

 

[BuilderML]

I can't really say how much material you will need for your driveway. That all depends on your site. Your crown is all part of the driveway top. If your using"sb2" for the top thats what you make the crown with. Also not sure if its because all the rain you may have had but if your driveway is really that wet it might be wise to invest in fabric for under the driveway. If not the whole driveway at least in the wet areas. As far as the amount of material i used in mine i have about 45 tri axle loads or 750-800 yards of material as the subbase. I have not really finished it completely yet i have been driving on the subbase for over the past 5 years. In some spots i have 2'-3' of base material it depends on how much organic material i removed and how much i raised it in spots.

 

[Buppies]

A rough way to figure what amount of material that you need. Figure the area of your driveway, length times width then divide by 9. This gives you square yards. If you want 6in of compacted stone multiply square yards by 600 then divide by 2000 for pounds in tons.

100sq yds times 600 =60000lbs divided by 2000=30 tons of stone. For 8in of stone use 800 12in use 1200 and so forth. Hopefully this helps for your determination of how much stone you need. Different areas have different conditions and use different methods to bridge soft areas. And each quarry calls stone types by a regional name. Being from SW Va I would be useless in La with my recommendations

 

[romanerin2011]

Oh thanks for that formula. Where do you buy fabric for under the driveway? I guess I could have better quality clay brought in. All the roads I've seen built they use clay as a base. I almost think that my driveway will be ready to be rocked after I dress it up a little. It has a layer of stone and brick under, just when the Sheetrock was delivered they blew out the sides and it pretty much got destroyed. I thought the rear blade was used for dressing up but I guess it's kinda hard to dress up clay.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Oh thanks for that formula. Where do you buy fabric for under the driveway? I guess I could have better quality clay brought in. All the roads I've seen built they use clay as a base. I almost think that my driveway will be ready to be rocked after I dress it up a little. It has a layer of stone and brick under, just when the Sheetrock was delivered they blew out the sides and it pretty much got destroyed. I thought the rear blade was used for dressing up but I guess it's kinda hard to dress up clay.

The rear blade was about $4k 8 years ago. As far as dressing your drive, there are several implements that commonly get used on drives.

A box blade
A rear blade
A landscape rake
A land plane grading scraper

I would consider the latter 2 as general finish maintenance implements and the first 2 as building-heavy maintenance implements.

This can vary, just what I have found to be true for me and my conditions.

Good luck with your drive. :thumbsup:

 

[GPintheMitten]

My guess is that it is just too wet. As it dries I would continue putting a crown on the drive and make shallow ditches on the sides. After it begins to take shape try turning the blade backwards to smooth it out. When you have the clay base formed properly and it is compacted, then top of with crushed stone.

At least that's what I would do.

 

[MacLawn]

I second most of what's been said. In my GA county, you MUST put geotextile fabric down, or they will make you dig ye gravel back up! We can get road base sand/clay mix too, it's great. About #57 gravel first, then what we call crusher run, smaller gravel with fines about like sand. Stuff sets up about like concrete! Louisiana will have different gravel, not our Georgia blue granite. Y'all probably have river rock. Get'er done.