Steep Gravel Driveway Too Much Work

[2manyrocks]

A friend of ours concreted his driveway in sections as he could afford it.

Don't expect perfection in a gravel driveway.

I think it's important to deal with wheel ruts before rain turns them into real problems.

The amount of rainfall and who has been driving on the road are all factors in how frequently and how much grading is necessary,

 

[Alien]

IrvingJ ... picturesque driveway, Love the ferns.
What is the story with the Corsair?

Doug

 

[irvingj]

The Corsair is a Guillow's model I helped an older gentleman with; he was used to ships and had never done a plane before. He needed a lot of assistance. Wingspan is around 30".

Glad you like the ferns, they are nice to look at.

Driveway pavement rough coat is now in place..... I hoping this will end any erosion, and make snow removal easier. Not to mention not tracking sand/gravel into the house every time it rains!:thumbsup:

 

[schmism]

its my experience that gravel drives need to be topped every 3-4 years.

You need to make shure you have proper drainage (aka ditch) on both sides and crown in the mid.

based on the slope you say you have your likely going to need larger rip rap in the ditches to control water velocity. (aka check dams)

 

[DennisArrow]

The gravel portion of my road is 900 yards long with 400 of that being on an 8 degree slope, 200 on a 6 degree and the rest gradual..........The pic of yours looks to be perhaps 3 degrees................

I have been contending with this problem for perhaps 10 years now with the last 3 trying and succeeding keeping it in good shape. The first thing to do is LIMIT traffic to 4 wheel drive folks or people that understand how to get traction and go SLOW.......One of my sons learned how pretty quickly when he was banned from the gravel and had to walk 300 yards through the woods...........Shoulda heard his wife trying to teach him...........

I use what is called crusher run straight from a "blue rock" quarry here. It is pieces 3/4 or so inch down to small fines and dust........When installed 4 years ago I hired a grader and vibrator roller used out on the highways...........Did a fine job.........

Since then every few months I will drag an 8 inch "I" beam wrapped in expanded wire fencing. The weight of the beam does a good job of knocking loose some rock and dust high places and then the fence spreads it well into ruts and holes that are really kept to a minimum. ONCE THEY BEGIN THEY MUST BE TREATED RIGHT THEN............I keep this drag at an angle to keep my crown high in the center...............

In addition I keep a pile of crusher run down in back of the barn for "thin" spots or when ruts, gullies, begin to develop I treat them right then................

THEN.........I plan and watch the weather to drag when there is gonna be a nice gentle rain to really get the gravel wet so it packs nice but doesnt get washed away......I drag before the rain and then after the rain I drive up and down up and down up and down to pack the gravel/dust down well.........I use my F250 for this as it is pretty heavy and has wide tires so that I leave tracks going across the road and KNOW when I have packed it............I do this treatment perhaps 3 or 4 times a year and it has worked well for me.............God bless........Dennis

 

[Pilot]

My 1,200 ft. driveway was built with pit run as a base, except for a 300 ft. long swale which has fabric. Pit run is the broken rock that results from blasting (I think), broken chunks up to almost a foot across and everything smaller. On top of that went 3/4" minus, which is rock crushed and screened to pass thru a 3/4" screen.

Both pit run and fabric areas have ruts. Both areas have a few potholes which I fill in every couple years.

Water runs down the ruts and erodes those areas, making the ruts worse. But after 19 years, it's still in pretty good shape. The pit run rock shows thru in a few spots; I expect in a few years I'll have to get several loads of gravel, but that's not bad for the time we have been here.

For long downhill runs you need water bars, which are low spots (almost ditches) angled to direct the water off to the side. Or you can dump gravel to create a high spot to do the same thing, but when I asked a dump truck driver to do that, he said, "no problem", then made a mess of it.