Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road

   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #11  
I use a phone AP called "Angle Finder". I've used it several times for grading slopes and it is pretty accurate.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road
  • Thread Starter
#12  
You NEED to pay for an engineering/survey driveway design

Fried, Point taken. I agree and that will be done when the grading contractor is available - apparently in December or January - he said he would come out and shoot it then and advise on the optimal way to proceed, where to put the required turnout, recommend options, etc.. He came out a few days ago specifically to answer my questions about new road vs existing road, and feasibility of the new route and generally pointed out that there was one best route to take to the top (one we also figured was an option - straight path up and likely at or close to the 12% grade). In no way would we be relying on our rough determinations.


But as stated we have a lot of time and we can entertain ourselves a bit in the meantime and gain a bit of knowledge while we wait - we will enjoy walking the route the contractor identified and learning a bit doing this. What we learn this way may be useful in other areas on the property. My family asked me if I could build the road with my tractor - I said I could - as I have built a number of roads on the property including similar slopes and such- but would not even try as it required a lot more dirt to be moved than I wanted to tackle, would take me forever, and it had to meet requirements of County, the building contractor and County Fire - my other roads were basically just roads to access other parts of the property. Thus, we are using a contractor who has built roads and pads and such in the hills up here for decades.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road
  • Thread Starter
#13  
They make cheap hand held levels, like a small telescope, about 10” long. Usually no magnification. I would put lath in every so often, say 25 feet measured in, and start at the bottom and work your way up the hill. You will need to know how high your eye is and make a mark on the lath ahead of you with a helper and measure how high the mark is. .

Thanks Dodgeman. I had one of the hand held - telescope levels which I used a number of years ago on the property but it broke (rattles inside and no level indicator any more). But it did work well enough and would work for what we want to do now. I will find one of those. It should be adequate for our preliminary tasks right now - the slope is not great and the distance is not that long so spending half a day doing this will be useful and a bit of fun - I always like learning. Ultimately the grading contractor will be shooting this - we just have time now to entertain ourselves.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #14  
I think there is a misconception of how a GPS device/app determines elevations...
All a GPS can do is determine geographical location...for elevations it must use third party data (nothing to do with GPS) i.e, data from topographical mapping that is correlated and interpolated...That is...once a location is determined it (device/app etc.) then relates that position to known elevations.

That is not correct GPS does figure elevations. It is the weak part of consumer grade GPS. Survey grade GPS does excellent with elevations but costs big bucks.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #15  
Thanks Dodgeman. I had one of the hand held - telescope levels which I used a number of years ago on the property but it broke (rattles inside and no level indicator any more). But it did work well enough and would work for what we want to do now. I will find one of those. It should be adequate for our preliminary tasks right now - the slope is not great and the distance is not that long so spending half a day doing this will be useful and a bit of fun - I always like learning. Ultimately the grading contractor will be shooting this - we just have time now to entertain ourselves.
If you had 2000 feet of road a hand level woukd get old in a hurry but you do not have that much. Like already mentioned you can check a hand level. Google “two pegs test for a level”.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #16  
might sound dumb....
I have two angle finders about 8" long with a bubble and angles marked in degrees on my excavator.

one in front above the windshield to measure tilt
one on the side to measure degrees of incline/decline.

pretty happy with that for a rough guess where im at.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #17  
You can always Google it and use Google Maps.

It is not on by default, but if you click on the three lines on the upper left side, then click on Terrain, it will show the contour lines.

Once you know the elevation, you can then left click and measure the distance and get a really close idea on the grade.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #18  
I have built all my heavy haul roads here just using string, a line level, and a 100 foot tape measure, and they have met Federal Funding guidelines.

To do this by yourself, you need to get a stake or rod to pound into the ground with a hammer, then tie your string on, run it out, and then measure it level with the line level pulling the string very tight. You then measure the height of the level string, and that will tell your grade. As you go down the hill, record your findings on paper and this will map out your road via grade changes.

I like to do my sections in 25 foot increments...

I also use string to set the centerline of my roads, and to establish finish grade.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road #19  
If using a hand level start at the top and work your way down. That way it only takes one person.

Use a nail with flagging tape on it for reference points going down hill.
 
   / Recommendations to shoot / determine a grade on proposed road
  • Thread Starter
#20  
Thanks again for the input. Very useful to me and much appreciated - learning more for sure.

We came back from the site - walked around - measured the distance from where the new driveway would start and end - boy was I way off on my guestimate. the actual distance for that span is 540 feet. Then, we took elevation readings using a smart phone - at the bottom start point and top ending point (a guestimate of the proposed location of the garage door - accounting for 6 feet off the peak to make the pad). These elevation measurements varied - so that tells me the smart phone method is subject to errors. So we then repeated the elevation readings several times. Per my son-in-law, the beginning elevation readings were between 2,370 and 2,380. The elevations at the top were between 2410 and 2420. I do not know how accurate these are - but they seem somewhat close given what I know about known elevations on the property. If I can find my altimeter I will calibrate that and check it against these numbers. Just eyeballing it, I would have thought the elevation difference was much more - but now thinking about it, that could be about right - trying to visualize 5 ten foot pvc sections end to end vertically.

In any event, for my present purposes, this was a good exercise as it tells me that even if we take the greatest difference in the elevations (50 feet) then there is likely no more than a 50 foot gain over 540 feet distance. And because we can achieve a somewhat uniform rise over that distance - and in a straight line all the way up - this all seems doable. I will now try to figure out what the grade would be over that distance - if gradual the entire way. We walked the area back and forth and a straight line straight to the top is the easiest course.

I now need to find my protractor, or relearn some math re percentage of grades and degrees - but first impressions are that the 12% grade is achievable - although there may be one area - at the very start - where we could approach 18-20 percent grade.

Thanks again. I assumed you would want to be updated, so this post.
 

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