Road building, stockpiling topsoil, subbase buildup. Scraper tips appreciated.

[Dadnatron]

I priced out a 1/3m road... it was far to costly. $26.5K... I think they think I am rich, so they are going to soak me.

I have decided that I have 3 choices.

1. Use what I have available to me already. 100hp tractor with FEL, 6yd scraper, 12' Killifer blade (drag/land leveler), box blade with hydralic shanks and 8ft disc.

2. Rent a dozer or excavator

3. Use the scraper to remove topsoil, then rent a dozer to grade the road myself.

...

I am very mechanically inclined, but I've never driven a dozer before.
I have used and am comfortable with an mini-excavator.

I have a laser level OTW - Bosch GRL-500. I know I have a lot of work to do with it, so decided to buy it rather than keep renting.

I am unsure of the grade of the road, but it is up a small hill over the entire course. One portion of about 20yds is a slight 'dip' resulting in a short higher grade. My intent is to fill that dip in with subbase, compact it, then put the road over it.

Overall... my questions are

1.When removing topsoil with the scraper, I suspect that I stockpile it by simply taking it somewhere and dumping it, continually driving over the pile making it larger and larger until done. Is that correct? Seems to make sense, but I suspect there are some tricks that will help me avoid some difficulty, and I suspect some of you might know them.

2. My other concern is determining when I am no longer in topsoil and into the clay. I understand 'color change' etc. But is that about the only way to know when I've moved from topsoil to subsoil? I have Maury soils throughout my place. But I know, I've gotten into clay on at least one part of the place below about 3ft.

3. With the cut, should I just go until level and ignore that it might still be in topsoil? What about half the road (downhill side) being on topsoil and the top side of the cut getting into clay? does that cause any issues with road stability long term? I suspect that a large portion of the road will be part topsoil and part clay, if I make a straight cut into the shallow slopes.

4. Is there any issue using clay 'fill' to fill in dips in the road without first removing topsoil completely? In one area, I need to build up the road about 1-2' in order to smooth out the grade. And in order to get down to clay, I might have to remove 1-2ft of topsoil making the 'dip' even deeper. I want to do what will make for the best road long term, but don't want to chase small % improvement that won't really make a difference in the road stability and usability.

5. Which option or combination of options would you recommend? I've asked this on the Heavy Equipment Forums, and most there think my current equipment is enough to handle the job. They don't recommend fabric... but I an hesitant NOT to use it, for the long term.

Pics added.

 

[RNeumann]

Based on the pics I think it's safe to skip the excavator. The dozer will speed things up but with a 100hp machine you could put that toward another Implement or TnT.
With regards to soil- you definitely want to remove the top 6-12" in the grass. The high organic content doesn't make good base. With that removed and moved to an area away from your project you can work to level and build a nice base. If you have soft areas we would put landscape fabric or filter fabric down between the native material and the imported base. You will have to weigh the cost vs fabric or additional base.
The idea with most any dirt work is compaction. Don't just dump 3' in a low spot and drive over it. Do it in 6-12" lifts and compact with the dozer or roller.
Road work is like painting- 90% prep and the final 10% will be the imported road base.

Happy to answer anymore questions. You have a project ahead of you!

 

[Egon]

You should have enough of the right equipment aside from a packer. The one of choice would be a footed vibratory but it may be what's available.

Squeeze a handful of soil. If it stays crumbly it's topsoil. If it form's a cohesive shape it should be clay.

Then for shaping the road.

Try and remove all the topsoil under the to be road. Start by ripping and disking to loosen up the planned roadway sod. To remove the sod you have three options, use the blade to roll it over to one side, use the bucket or the scrapper or a combination of all three.

Shaping the road will requireing cutting on the high side and droping it on the low side. Crowns cut Down to fill dips. Ditches pulled up for road. If more material is needed make wider ditches. No sharp drop offs. Gentle transistions. You'll have to figure out which piece of equipment for the different aspects of the shaping.

On the fill areas keep them smooth and blade often. You may even want to disc after each layer of fill. This levels, smooths and mixes. The more levelling and smoothing you do the better your finished product will be. Do your packing as the lifts of fill go on.

 

[Dadnatron]

Concerning the uphill ditch.

If my intended drivable surface road is 11ft I was expecting to clear 13ft of flat top. Given this, how much wider do I need to clear to make an appropriately sized ditch? This will not have much water coming off given that it is close to the top of a small ridge. Also, is a 2:1 upper bank grade for the ditch, adequate in this instance?

Mowing will be done by a verge flail mower on an arm, so the angle won't be difficult to manage.

 

[RNeumann]

11' road plus a little berm on the downhill side to capture the imported base plus a little berm on the uphill side plus the ditch you are near 14'. I'd also add a pipe/culvert pipe across the road rather than having water flow over the surface in a few natural spots.
2:1 is the normal max slope for dirt work. That will be fine.
As another side note your BB holds more than the FEL. So for most of the cut and fill the BB will be the most efficient. TnT will take the ho hum BB and turn it into an awesome and versatile tool.

 

[Dadnatron]

TnT will take the ho hum BB and turn it into an awesome and versatile tool.

I have one on order from FitRite... but I'm likely 2mo out. Hopefully, this road will be put in long before it arrives.

I do wish I had gone ahead and pulled the trigger on the TnT last fall though. It would make this a whole lot easier to do.

 

[Egon]

Go 4:1 or is it 1:4 (memory don't work good no more ) on the slopes. This is what a lot of highways use. It's gentle and easy to work/drive over.

 

[Leejohn]

With a 100hp tractor I would find a used dirt pan and go for it.

 

[Sprinklerman]

If you need fabric , heres what a friend did . He went to a advertizing company that did roadside bill boards and got the old signs , the ones that that are pre printed . They throw them away . They are heavy duty fabric .

 

[Dadnatron]

With a 100hp tractor I would find a used dirt pan and go for it.

How about the 6yd pan I have on site? Heh...

 

[EddieWalker]

Do you actually have topsoil? Topsoil is made up of organic material and most commonly in wooded areas. The reason you remove it is because it will never compact and if you build over it, it will continue to decompose. Looking at your pics, all I see is grass. If you remove your soil for the road, you have now created a ditch for water to go to. Filling that ditch with soil required serious compaction to keep the water out of that area. This is very hard to do, and even the pros get it wrong and have to go back and do it again.

I would cut the grass as short as possible and just leave it alone. The amount left will not be enough to affect your road when it decays.

Then I would use the scraper and dig down a few inches on both sides of your road, or just the high side to catch the water and spread it on top of your road to create a small crown.

I would only rent a dozer if I felt I needed to dress up the dirt after you have it all spread. With your tractor, I bet you could get it pretty nice without having to rent a dozer. If you decide to use a dozer, the biggest mistake I see people make is going too fast. You can never go too slow, so start out at a crawl as slow as possible and work up to a comfortable speed. Get off the machine and walk what you have done. Everything looks different from the seat then it does when you are standing on it.

 

[Egon]

How about the 6yd pan I have on site? Heh...

View attachment 499590

That is one nice implement! Only thing you may need is a compactor.

 

[Leejohn]

How about the 6yd pan I have on site? Heh...

View attachment 499590

Dadnatron I'm sorry I didn't understand what you had there. I have always called them dirt pans and couldn't tell by the pictures. I would say that well do the trick.

 

[Dadnatron]

I have my road laid out and elevations noted. I am ready to remove topsoil for storage.

This pasture has had soybeans on it the last 2 years. Currently, I have a mix of blue grass/orchard grass and winter wheat, all drilled in last fall. IT is growing well.

My question is concerning Scraping...

Now, I've done it before and had some good and bad times with it. I NOW have a disc, that I can run up and down the road for a while beforehand, but my question is, which do you think would load better? Virgin ground or disced ground? About 25% is in long term grass (fescue I believe) for erosion control. I will be running along this established grass for a bit. I suspect it will load better (or perhaps unload better) disced up, but I'm not sure about the rest.

I'd like to minimize the number of times I have to switch implements, so I'd like your opinion. I will certainly try 'one' and see how well it works. I've worked with it 'virgin' but I've never tried discing it up before. I don't particularly want to disc it up (or a part of it) and then have obvious difficulty because my thinking was ridiculous.

So... 6yd dirt pan... virgin topsoil or disced topsoil?

Stockpiling it for later use.

 

[Egon]

Give a try without the disking. Then you have a choice!

 

[Dadnatron]

I've been slowed extremely due to the weather we have had over the last month.

I went ahead and rented a D6K which carved the road in a jiffy. Well worth it, regardless of my thoughts of doing it with my scraper. The speed at which I was able to cut it made all the difference.

I still have some final grading to do.

I initially had an expected road width of 11ft drive-able surface. This gave me at least 3 feet to the inside for a ditch. My current question is, can I 'build the ditch' simply by pouring gravel on the road surface and then back filling against it with topsoil? Basically, as it is now, I have an 'approximately' 2:1 slope on the uphill side terminating at the current road surface. If I build up the road with 6-8" gravel, leaving space between the side slope, and the gravel covered with topsoil and planted with grass, will that allow for enough of a ditch, given there is very minimal area that would drain this direction?

 

[Rustyiron]

Look's like you were born on that D-6:thumbsup:
I hate giving or taking "internet advice" on dirt. So many different soil's around the country that it's not a single answer other than basic grading & ditching. I've saved a lot of work (and gravel) by using the right filter cloth. (in the right conditions) You got a "local guy" to ask his opinion's on this?

 

[Dadnatron]

My local guy is somewhat ambivalent about fabric at this point. He says, "When its wet season, we typically use it. When its dry, we don't. You are right in the middle of that timeframe."

What do you think about the utility of getting a sheepsfoot compactor and compacting the road? Is that necessary/useful? 90% of the road is on cut. The only thing that isn't is a small amount of build up in one lower area that I dug to sticky clay, then compacted 4" lifts with my tractor and loaded scraper, in order to get it up to grade. I was initially going to get a Vibratory compactor for this spot, but then was recommended to just use my tractor with a full bucket. It 'seems' to be compacted pretty well, but given my complete lack of knowledge on 'how well is WELL' I don't know.

I know how it can be when giving advice online, but if you have anything to add to the above, I'd sure appreciate it.

 

[teg]

What type of rock are you going to put down? If it's only Crusher Run, I would lean towards using the fabric (especially if you have soft spots). I would consider using larger rock as the base (no fabric). Drive on this for awhile... then cover with crusher run. BUT it really depends on YOUR soil type and rain fall amounts.

I can not comment on a roller... seems to be a smart thing but never seen it used.

PS. As for ditches, bigger is better, they tend to "fill in" over time.

 

[Rustyiron]

My local guy is somewhat ambivalent about fabric at this point.
I know how it can be when giving advice online, but if you have anything to add to the above, I'd sure appreciate it.

Would it be possible to only spread minimal stone at this point, use the road normally, and just see what/where problem area's appear and then deal with them? Is this just a farm road?