Building a Gravel Driveway

[Lon Crosby]

About the biggest equipment that will likely travel the road will be 8000 pounds.

What about the semi delivering the new saw, or the concrete truck delivering for the new shop footing/floor, the truck servicing the electric line, or the??? Even the UPS delivery truck will most likely be over 8000 pounds. A simple pickup will come in at over 5k pounds - unloaded. Lots of ways to make a good lane and 10x more to make a bad one. Give me a drum of wood glue (acrylic), a rototiller and a compactor and you can have a mil-spec road under the right conditions. Fabric can turn a bad design or implementation into an acceptable lane. Building a lane /road is all about drainage. You can't have enough. Cut into a hillside, drainage on the uphill side is critical. That is why there are ditches along roads, both sides.

[Larry Frank]

No matter what I did, the gravel driveway needed a load or two of new gravel every year or two. My ground was clay and with significant ground heave every year. After about 10 years or so it got pretty good.

[Matt Mattingley]

It really comes down to what you're laying it on top of. I have a drive that's been maintained for maybe 30 years. One of the best materials was crushed limestone mix. The one that lasted the longest and cost the most was recycled asphalt. The quick daily fix on the cheap is recycled cement Gravel (if you have a recycler nearby) . The washouts are the killer. Callverts and the Muskoka culvert help prevent wash outs. I have used everything from P gravel those nice on the feet to 3/4 clear stone but for the main drive or three-quarter gravel mix does well.

[Jerome Stanek]

My drive to y shop I used railroad ballast as a base

[John K Jordan]

I know a few basics about building a gravel drive and have read several articles on the topic but still have comments and questions.
1. Some folks want the drive to be three layers of varying rock with each layer 6" thick; that won't happen. I am not trying to build a road to Athens. Is 4" a reasonable depth for each layer?
2. Concerning layers, many say 3" - 4" rock for the bottom layer. Will 209 stone suffice? I am not quite sure what it is, but the quarry a couple miles from the farm has it.
3. I am likely going to cut into the hillside to bury the drive or only have it above the grass a few inches. Is there a reason to have it a foot above the area around it?
4. Is 12' wide sufficient?
5. Everyone seems to recommend an underlayment cloth in heavy clay soil, which this is, but do you also recommend having an "edge" on the driveway such as railroad ties? This drive will be about 300' long. That's a lot of ties.
6. Some dealers want to quote in cubic yards and others in tons.....how does one calculate apples to oranges?

Rich, I am not a civil engineer but I have built thousands of feet of driveway for the farm here. I think there are many "Right" ways, but right depends on your soil, drainage, runoff, whether the drive is under trees or in the open, what materials are available, and what equipment you have. Also, what is the traffic, do you expect constant loaded semi trucks and other heavy equipment or is it mostly light weight farm and home vehicles? Our past work at the Lab with highway research taught us why they use multiple thick layers of rock for commercial roads but that is WAY overkill for most farm/personal driveways.

Remember that one person's advice may be useless even if it worked for him - your conditions my be quite different. For example, iif the drive is mostly under trees through the woods, the trees may stop much of the driving rain and the forest soil will absorb much of the water as it hits the ground and before it can make a gully-washing stream. If the ground is sloped uphill on one side of the drive where it can funnel runoff to the drive, you will need to play close attention to drainage. I my case, I have one field that feeds water to a low spot on one point on one road and I really need to shape the ground and a culvert at the low point.

I built my primary driveway with just the yard box on my tractor. It's about 900 ft long, down and up a hill, part in the open part in the woods, built over the red clay and chert common here. I put 4" of crusher run on it maybe 8 years ago. I have to grade it a couple of times a year but until this year I didn't need to add any more rock.

I have several other access roads through the woods on the property for occasional use with tractor, truck, and my big trailers. These I cut with the bobcat and tractor and spread a thin layer of 1/2 gravel. I sloped the drive slightly sideways and made sure there was no cut on the lower edge to catch the water and make a stream. Friends looked at these and said that will never work. These have needed no maintenance in years, even after torrential rainstorms. I think the trees slow down the water and the 1/2" gravel lets the water move gently sideways instead of cutting a channel. Any place I used compacted crusher run on a slope washed out eventually.

One thing I always do which works for MY soil and conditions - I cut and shape the ground (cut and fill, cut and fill) and then drive over it a bunch of times to compact. Before I got the skid steer I would put a load of gravel in the bucket of the tractor to put a lot of weight on the smaller front tires. This makes a poor man's sheep's foot compactor (sort of). Then I spread gravel and run again. (One tip: offer to pay the gravel delivery guy a bit extra to run his truck up and down the drive a bit to compact the gravel he just spread. Another tip - some drivers are horrible at spreading, ask for the best guy. Also, if I can make it work, I prefer to have the rock dumped in a pile and spread it myself - that's what I did with two loads this week and a couple coming tomorrow.

I like the surface a few inches about the surrounding soil, but again, this depends on conditions - if there is a lot of runoff from the side you may need to allow for drainage or the water may cut a big ditch. If there is a long area with gentle runoff from one side, it may be better to let that run onto and straight across the gently sloped drive instead of channeling the water down the side.

My gravel supplier recently told me about what he uses on his drive (long drive, up a hill, several switchbacks) - slag from a local steel mill, a byproduct of making rebar. He said every customer he as spread this for loves it and for some reason won't wash out like crusher run. I got one load to try on maybe 400'. It is black, almost looks like asphalt when it goes down, but is supposed to gradually turn grey. (And it is a lot cheaper than gravel.) We'll see how it works - check back in a year or two! Note that I put this down over an existing compacted driveway - I don't know how it would work over dirt.

I would recommend driving around your area and scoping out the best looking gravel driveways and try to find how they were made, how well they have worked out, and what the owner might recommend to do differently. Also, consult with your favorite geologist friend if you have one.

If you haven't priced gravel lately, be prepared for a sticker shock. I paid just over $300 for a 20-ton load when I built my drive - yesterday it was over $450 delivered from the same people. They said it is going up again in a couple of weeks.

JKJ

[Ole Anderson]

As far as cutting a divot in the ground to for the driveway, it'll keep the rocks in better but it might funnel water into the driveway when it comes a monsoon. With my driveway, I don't think we've ever had any more than 3" deep of rock and I could say the same thing for the rest of the local folk too. I'd like to ask if you'll be putting yours on a hill. Mine is on a hill that raises from about 1000 feet to about 2700 feet in just over 150 yards, it's a steep hill. On the flattish spots the rocks stay there pretty good, but on the hill they'll gradually wash down. The friends down the street don't have really any problems. Oh, and we've got clay under ours.

1700 feet of elevation in 450 feet? Even 170 feet in 450 (38% grade) would be 4x4 hillclimb territory.

[John K Jordan]

1700 feet of elevation in 450 feet? Even 170 feet in 450 (38% grade) would be 4x4 hillclimb territory.

I have a friend with a very steep driveway. I always had to use 4WD on the gravel. He ended up concreting the steepest part, made with a very rough surface. Very nice!

We've thought about concrete for our main driveway but the last time I checked it would be $26,000 even if I did the forms and supplied the rebar. Ack.

JKJ

[Jim Becker]

When our "new" driveway went in, they cut it down to subsoil, laid in geo-textile and then put in several layers of modified stone, compacting each. The only area that got some heavier rock was the last 8' to the road which was a bit more "regulated" relative to construction requirements including requiring 4" of asphalt paving for that 8' as what I'll term a "landing pad". (I'm actually very appreciative of that paving when a rare snowstorm dumps on us as it makes clearing that area at the road much easier) If your driveway is cut in clean enough, you don't really need a boarder for a rural driveway...the un-touched soil should hold it fairly well. Borders are more of an aesthetic in most cases, although in certain areas with certain kinds of soils, they may be more practical. IMHO...which may not match reality.

Personally, if I happen to win the PowerBall, the driveway will get paved quickly to cut down on dirt and make snow removal much easier.

[Jim Laumann]

Personally, if I happen to win the PowerBall, the driveway will get paved quickly to cut down on dirt and make snow removal much easier.

As the owner of a 1700' gravel drive - I can only say: Absolutely YES!!!!

[Jim Becker]

Ours is only about 350' on one side and another 100'+ on the other side (shared with neighbor but I maintain it) with a large parking area...but I truly do want at least the parking area paved at some point, if not the whole thing. I did a whole house generator this past year as "the project", so maybe the next time I have the ability, the driveway will get the nod.

[Ed Aumiller]

Here is a handy calculator to find out how many tons of gravel is needed for roads, etc

http://www.rockydalequarries.com/Hel...8/Default.aspx

There is other info on stone sizes, etc on their website..

Good luck on your project..

[Rich Riddle]

We cut the top soil down about six inches and finally had weather that would allow for starting the drive. The protective cloth is under the 6" layer of #2 rock which is the first course.

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[Mel Fulks]

Looks good ,and there is always a place that needs some more top soil.

[Rich Riddle]

Mel,

Thanks for the encouragement. To me it looks like an old abandoned or neglected farmhouse and land, but it's improving. Slowly but surely. The scraped off topsoil is filling the dips in the contour of the lot. The mower didn't like the low spots.

[John K Jordan]

...scraped off topsoil is filling the dips in the contour of the lot. The mower didn't like the low spots.

I did that in a long depression running across my horse pasture. With the yard box, landscape rake, and a little grass seed, a year later you couldn't see any difference.

I bought a used 6' wide landscape rake which simplifies smoothing and cleanup in the fields and especially under trees (rocks, limbs, sticks, roots) where I ripped out all the privet and bush honeysuckle with the skid steer. Great for occasionally smoothing a gravel drive too although the yard box is needed on slopes after a downpour.

BTW, the absolute best thing I ever did to add utility to my tractor was to add top and tilt cylinders and controls to adjust the angles of things on the 3 point hitch. Not only lets me do a better job but saves SO much time making adjustments when shaping drives, drainage, etc., and incredibly useful even when drilling holes or pounding wooden fence posts into the ground.

JKJ