New driveway

[dougrout]

I have been following the forum postings here but haven't seen anything about establishing a new driveway. I have about 3/4 of a mile to get from my house to the woodlot at the north end of my property. The trail to get there is very rough. Part of the trail is along the side of plowed fields and is very bumpy, while the rest is through a woods where I cut a trail two years ago. The wooded portion is the roughest with roots, rocks and stumps restricting my speed on the tractor to under 2 mph.

Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to improve the roadway. I would like to be able to travel comfortably at 4 mph or more throughout. I would be willing to purchase some equipment (land leveller, box blade, landscape rake, backhoe, etc.) if that would be helpful. I do have a rear blade and can remove some smaller rocks using a steel bar and the FEL on my John Deere 3320.

Doug

 

[MtnViewRanch]

My choice would be your rear blade and a (LPGB) land plane grader blade.

You may need to use your loader at times also. Good luck and let us know what and how you make out.

 

[teg]

You can fill these areas vs. digging out roots/rocks... Do you have an area to dig dirt from? Hillside? Pond area? another option is buy fill dirt... and raise the area so that you can make it flat. You have to have material to work with... Digging a ditch along the road and bring the material to the road surface to be smoothed out and packed down...

 

[dougrout]

You can fill these areas vs. digging out roots/rocks... Do you have an area to dig dirt from? Hillside? Pond area? another option is buy fill dirt... and raise the area so that you can make it flat. You have to have material to work with... Digging a ditch along the road and bring the material to the road surface to be smoothed out and packed down...

That's an interesting idea - would you use a backhoe to dig the ditch?

 

[teg]

I used the FEL some, on the flat areas, and used a Rear blade that had could be offset to one side and tilted. Roots and rocks are not fun to deal with when building roads...

 

[stravis]

If it's soft, I'd haul in some gravel or crushed construction debris (concrete, block and brick). You could do so with just your rear blade and it will compact with use. Maintain for a while with your blade and within a couple of months, it will keep itself smooth. Order an extra load or two of rock to fix any areas that remain soft.

 

[brewdog]

Sounds like you need a dozer for a day to clear, shape and smooth the road. If it's as bad as you make it out to be, you will destroy your tractor trying to fix the road.

 

[billybobjimmyjoejack]

I have a backhoe on my tractor and would suggest you get one for yours. You would be able to remove any stumps, roots and larger rocks from your driveway that are obstructing your clear path and with a wider bucket you could dig a ditch along side for extra material for fill on the driveway.
Adding a thumb to the backhoe would help tremendously with these tasks and you could use it later in your woodlot.
Once you remove all of the obstructions and add any soil from ditching you would want to smooth the whole length of the driveway. For this task you
would want to use one of the grader/scrapers mentioned earlier, you would have a nicely graded drive and you would use the grader/scraper in the future for any maintenance.
If you decide to bring in some type of a base rock it should be larger stones or chunks of concrete or what ever is available in your area. Drive on the base rock for at least one winter, the theory is the larger rocks or stones will push down into the mud and lock into place to stabilize the roadbed. Top dress with smaller material later once the road has settled and stabilized. If the driveway needs to be smoothed up some in the future you would use the grader/scraper.

 

[dougrout]

Some great ideas - keep them coming!

I think a backhoe would be a great addition to my tractor. Does anyone have experience with a backhoe on a John Deere 3320? I'm wondering if the tractor is up to the task of removing stumps? I could also use a grapple for loading logs onto my sawmill but many of the logs are too heavy for the 3320. How to break it to my wife that we need a second piece of machinery? SWMBO will not be impressed!

I also like the idea of adding fill especially on the part of the roadway that goes through the woods.

Thanks for all the ideas.

 

[jenkinsph]

Lots of variables and some good suggestions so far, probably will need to handle this in different ways along the length of the road. As mentioned you can use a rear blade to make a ditch or swale on either side of the road and pull these spoils up on the roadway to further elevate it. To get the road to dry out after rains it needs a slight crown and the ditches need to be channeled away from the road. If the water drains across the road you may need some culverts at the lower ends of the ditches. How you accomplish this depends on your terrain.

You can use the spoils from the ditch or ditches to reduce the amount of material you have to buy but a good all weather road will need base course and gravel that is packed smoothed and groomed.


How big are the stumps in the roadway and can you go around the largest ones? If you dig out the stumps take into consideration that you need to repack the holes tight. Large stumps are best handled with large equipment as it can take alot of time usig a small backhoe. A small backhoe can be a very handy thing to have and I do find I use mine often.