Building Driveway/Parking Area (over disturbed soil)

[madmax12]

Thx for all the great input.

 

[mx842]

Thx for all the great input.

Madmax..... First, you probably need to figure out just what your main objective is. Are you waiting for two years just to give the soil a chance to settle on it's own or do you want to pour the pad now and are afraid you can't get proper compaction?

As far as the gravel drive goes... a gravel drive is what it is and will need attention from time to time. Let's do the drive way first. I assume you have been using the drive way for some time and if so you already know where any potential problem spots are. Before you put down any stone make sure you cut out any of these soft spots and back fill them with a larger stone like railroad ballast (3" or 4") and if your quarry has this sized stone with dust mixed in with it use that for small to moderate size areas 1' to 6' in size. If you have a place that is soft or gets rutted for 10' or more you need to cut these spots out a foot or more and fill them in with big clean stone but what you want to do is bridge over these places meaning cut it out and when you start to back fill in these areas don't let the truck driver spread it, back him up to where you want to fill in and stop him a few feet before he gets to the cut out part and have him dump a pile and pull up. Then work the stone into cut area from the center line outwards dumping more stone as needed until the first ten feet or so is good and solid. A crawler type loader or dozer works better than a rubber tire machine with this or a small excavator is even better the main thing is never and I mean never let the truck drive into this area until it is properly built up and bridged over with at least a foot or more of this large stone built up on top of what you have worked into the cut area. The main thing is to work these areas slowly and understand what happens when the heavy loaded trucks wheels do when they drive into a soft area. the area of the tires is small and the weight pushes down forcing the earth on the outside of the wheels to push outward and the earth on the inside of the wheels is forced upward creating a giant water holding crevasse that will never heal up no matter how much stone you dump on it.

Recap, Once the cut area is cut out and leveled stay off of it and bridge the stone over the area never work from the cut area always work into it with a foot or two of large stone under the tracks or wheels of the spreading tractor. Remember a rubber tired spreader is going to make ruts also so you may have to build up the area higher to keep from disturbing the nice level area you are putting the rock on. Work from the center outward and don't get ahead of yourself and let the sub material start to pump up behind you if this starts to happen you are going too fast and don't have enough material under your tracks. It's okay to leave these areas high, a foot or more if needed until everything settles down 6 months or more depending on the weather just level the area off from time to time and as you drive over these areas don't drive in the same track all the time use the whole drive way to help keep it level.

After awhile you will notice that where you had a 2' high pile in the drive way through these areas has now settled down somewhat and then you can top it off with a layer of what ever you are going to put on the rest of the drive way and after a couple years you will never even notice where the soft areas were if done correctly.

What I would do with the area around the barn that you want to pour concrete on is pretty much the same. find any soft areas cut them out fill them with stone. Grade the whole area to get proper drainage away from the building down to at least 11" below the finish grade and put 6" of sub base material, crushed stone or good sandy/clay mix bank gravel then compact it well with a pan type walk behind compactor and put your 5" of concrete down on top of that and forget about it. Well I don't mean forget about it, now you can sit back and enjoy your hard work and don't forget to put up a steel pole someplace where you can attach an old fruit basket for the basket ball games that will most assuredly start to begin happening with all that nice concrete around.:laughing:

 

[madmax12]

mx842, thx for your ideas.

Your reply addresses the OP's project... and mine (I'm not the OP... but I really appreciate all the help).

This picture is a mirror image of what I'm thinking of doing.
http://hillsidestone.org/~hillsidestone/tipe/pictures/gravel_parking_area.jpg

I have an asphalt drive from the street to garage. I'm leaving that alone.
Next to it, is lawn. I want to do what you see in the above picture and put in a gravel drive about that size, in almost the same exact way...abutting the asphalt driveway. But for me, it would be the other side of the house, a mirror image.
Here's a link to a thread of the above picture in stages...scroll down (in the linked page) to see the 5 pics:
http://forums.aaca.org/f196/dirty-gravel-clean-gravel-driveway-parking-258037.html

I was hoping to knock this out before winter... but in Maine, snow could start flying in a few weeks... so, I'm not certain I'll have figured this all out in time. We'll see.

Plenty of other projects to do if I don't get to that one, I guess.:confused2:

 

[mx842]

mx842, thx for your ideas.

Your reply addresses the OP's project... and mine (I'm not the OP... but I really appreciate all the help).

This picture is a mirror image of what I'm thinking of doing.
http://hillsidestone.org/~hillsidestone/tipe/pictures/gravel_parking_area.jpg

I have an asphalt drive from the street to garage. I'm leaving that alone.
Next to it, is lawn. I want to do what you see in the above picture and put in a gravel drive about that size, in almost the same exact way...abutting the asphalt driveway. But for me, it would be the other side of the house, a mirror image.
Here's a link to a thread of the above picture in stages...scroll down (in the linked page) to see the 5 pics:
Dirty Gravel or Clean Gravel for a Driveway/Parking Area?

I was hoping to knock this out before winter... but in Maine, snow could start flying in a few weeks... so, I'm not certain I'll have figured this all out in time. We'll see.

Plenty of other projects to do if I don't get to that one, I guess.:confused2:

I didn't read the whole thread but from what I saw it looks like you are on the right track. The biggest problem with gravel drives other than the regular maintenance is grass growing up through it. I always like to once the sub soil is removed to spray the heck out of the area with a good weed control. Even when you apply some sort of barrier like what was shown in those pics it will still come through. You can apply weed control on it as it comes through as it is part of the maintenance of a gravel drive.

The main idea is to start out on good solid ground that is level with good drainage then big rock down first to stabilize the area then smaller rock on top to seal it off then repair as necessary. Some soils and climates cause more maintenance to be done that's just the nature of a gravel drive or parking area.

 

[madmax12]

thx mx842, schmism, Egon, Ed of all trades, yelbike, MarkV , and boggen :thumbsup:

My first post was intended to provide MMH with links to what I was finding as I learn. But I ended up with a lot of good teachers for my own project.

MMH... how's your project going?

Has the advice here been useful?

 

[GLyford]

When I put in my drive the loader dug out the grass on about 30' of a 100 yard long drive, and I have had more trouble with that 30' than all the rest. I can't see anything that would make that part different except he dug the grass out, about 4" deep. :2cents: next time for me it is gravel on the grass if i can.

I've heard of that happening when the soil doesn't drain well (like certain types of clay) and the dug out section doesn't have any place to drain to.

You're basically making a clay bowl full of gravel where it's been dug out, but if you just put gravel on top and leave the existing grade alone it lets the water keep going without giving it anywhere to collect.

If you have soil like that, that doesn't drain, but have some slope then you can put a ditch on the low side and make sure the dug out section drains out to the ditch, either by having a "cut" from the dug section to the ditch backfilled with gravel, or using a drain or culvert of some kind. I think the key here is the ditch has to be lower than the "floor" of the dug out section to give the water somewhere "downhill" to go away from your driveway.

I don't have that problem at my place...but I'm on sand. It all depends on how your soil reacts to water. Always be thinking "now where's the water going to go next...?"

 

[sdkubota]

I am an engineer and this is my area of expertise. You mentioned the clay is expansive...problem. Also the unpacked fill will be a problem and settle over many, many years. If you had plenty of money you could pre-load the area by building up the soil say 6' higher then your finish grade and allow it to sit for a year to compress the underlying layers. It is extremely difficult and costly to pack soil greater then 2' in depth. If I were you, given the numerous constraints, I would use 8" of gravel and call it good. Even if the fill was packed with the greatest of care...expansive soil is a problem and will cause problems.

 

[yelbike]

I am an engineer and this is my area of expertise. You mentioned the clay is expansive...problem. Also the unpacked fill will be a problem and settle over many, many years. If you had plenty of money you could pre-load the area by building up the soil say 6' higher then your finish grade and allow it to sit for a year to compress the underlying layers. It is extremely difficult and costly to pack soil greater then 2' in depth. If I were you, given the numerous constraints, I would use 8" of gravel and call it good. Even if the fill was packed with the greatest of care...expansive soil is a problem and will cause problems.

Since your an engineer in the field( no pun intended), what's your view on geotextile fabric? Needed or waste of money?

 

[sdkubota]

Since your an engineer in the field( no pun intended), what's your view on geotextile fabric? Needed or waste of money?

There are two main types of geotextiles normally used. The one I believe you are referring to is like a heavy nonwoven felt. Its purpose is to seperate different materials like gravel and subsoil. In certain soils it is very usefull as without it and deep rutting will bring soil into the gravel and contaminating it. It is fairly inexpensive but I still believe in nothing short of 8" of gravel for a good base. The second type is generally referred to as Tensar which was a trade name. It looks somewhat like plastic snow fence with an open grind. The plastic is very strong in tensile strength and the material is placed below the gravel and ends up like a hammock supporting wheel loads above by spreading the tire bearing forces over a very large area. The material is expensive but many roads are built directly over swamp materials that would be impossible without.

Earlier correction: Do I understand your fill depth is relatively shallow (8" - 16") ? Expansive soils still a problem and prone to swell when wet and shrink when dry. Placing an impermeable membrane (concrete) over these soils will cause moisture levels to increase below the slab at different rates than thesurrounding areas...= problem.

 

[sdkubota]

Sorry...didn't really answer your question direct. I would use a geotextile nonwoven fabric if the subsoils were prone to deep rutting when wet. If that wasn't the case I would spend my money on having a good road gravel over the soil and packed well in place.

 

[yelbike]

Sorry...didn't really answer your question direct. I would use a geotextile nonwoven fabric if the subsoils were prone to deep rutting when wet. If that wasn't the case I would spend my money on having a good road gravel over the soil and packed well in place.

I don't want to hijack the tread, but here I go anyway. I know what products your referring to, but its the woven fabric I was referring to. Very similar to the cheap blue tarps, obviously much stronger.

 

[yelbike]

Sorry...didn't really answer your question direct. I would use a geotextile nonwoven fabric if the subsoils were prone to deep rutting when wet. If that wasn't the case I would spend my money on having a good road gravel over the soil and packed well in place.

duplicate post.

 

[madmax12]

I don't want to hijack the tread, but here I go anyway. I know what products your referring to, but its the woven fabric I was referring to. Very similar to the cheap blue tarps, obviously much stronger.

Your question is one I'm following closely, as I may dive into this soon. I appreciate your questions.

 

[mx842]

I don't want to hijack the tread, but here I go anyway. I know what products your referring to, but its the woven fabric I was referring to. Very similar to the cheap blue tarps, obviously much stronger.

I'm not an engineer but in my younger life I built many subdivisions and other service roads. Most of the roads into these places are built in the areas where the dirt is the worst and the terrain is either swampy or very hilly with many cut and fill sections. They need to keep the more desirable land areas for houses or other building they are building the road to.

You can build a road over any thing if you have enough money to spend. The material you are referring to is a good product and does a good job in areas that are wet due to poor drainage or because the soil holds a lot of moisture. This stuff really shines in areas that are damp and have relatively flat topo. When the right away clearing is done and the top soil is removed from the road way and you are at or near finish or sub grade and the dirt left is still not stable enough to get compaction for a road bed. On a site like this where you don't have a lot of cut areas with access to enough good suitable fill material where you can cut out 2 or three feet of the undesirable soil and fill it back in with good compactable dirt from the cut areas.

Here you just cut out a couple feet of the the unsuitable soil and lay down the fabric and bridge over it with large clean stone up to within 8 to 12 inches of finish grade and then fill the rest with a stone/dust material like crusher run to seal off the surface.

If you are a contractor with access to the equipment, materials and the money to build a private drive this way you can end up with a heck of a nice drive way. But most people don't have this luxury and have to resort to the old way of doing things and use what they have access to.

My drive way is 1500 feet long and the first 900 feet was through the worst material known to man. The first 30 feet was the worst because I didn't have anywhere to work and it was heavily wooded. On top of that I only had a 70' easement and pizzed off neighbors on both sides because I bought this piece of property before they could steal it. I had to be real careful not to disturb 1 inch on either side of me. The dirt didn't look that bad, it was damp but looked solid so I got a 955 Cat from an old friend and started to clear out a spot where I could lay a culvert pipe so I could get off the main road. I pushed over a couple trees then cut them up in small pieces so I could get them out of the way and laid the pipe. I remember thinking, this ain't going to be too bad.:laughing: Then I ordered a load of stone to cover the pipe and get some stone over what I had already disturbed. The truck got there and I had him back up to the pipe and dump some so I could work the stone over the pipe and pack it down some and once I had about a foot of packed stone over the pipe I let him back in over it and dump the rest in a pile on the side. I sent the truck back to get a load of #3's and while he was gone I figured I could cut out a foot or two of the soft dirt and fill it in with the big rock at the road because there would be a lot of pressure on that area with all the big heavy trucks turning into the drive there that would be coming in and out while I was building my house.

Everything was going well and I had a spot about 15' long and 20 foot wide cut out and I was sitting there on the loader waiting for the truck to come back when I noticed water just appear out of nowhere in the area I had cut out. No problem I thought and when the truck rolled back in I went out in the road to direct traffic so he could back in to dump his load. I had told him before not to back in too far just to where his back tandum wheel was over the pipe and dump the whole load in a pile but I got up on the running board and told him again not to back any farther than just to the pipe but this John Wayne, rambo sun of a gun decided he would show the world just how bad that old Louisville Ford really was and tried to back all the way in and as his front tandum cleared the pipe all the weight shifted and the ends of the pipe popped out of the ground and as he poured the coal on the old girl the back end went out of sight and came to a screaming halt with the tailgate half covered up in mud. He couldn't even dump the load and the first thing he did was jump out of the truck and yell that I needed to call a wrecker. I was so mad I was afraid what would have happened if I had said anything at that point so I just went over, got on the loader and tried to figure a way to get him out without tearing off something on his big shiny truck. Not that I really cared at that point but I'm a pretty nice guy most of the time so I just kept my mouth shut and surveyed the situation. Pulling him out with the loader was out of the question because I didn't want to tear up the highway so pushing was the only way. I dug out a spot at the back of the tailgate enough to where it would open so he could dump some of the load to get some weight off the truck but the more I scooped out the more water came rolling in and then I felt that awful feeling, you know that feeling when the tracks under you slip ever so lightly and you know you are already stuck but don't know it yet. I tried to work my way back ever so lightly but the loader was not going anywhere and what was worst I couldn't even use the bucket to help move me backwards because the truck was right there. By now the truck front wheels were off the ground, the back end of the truck was buried to the top of the tailgate, the loader bucket was completely buried in the mud with the rear tracks sticking out into the air. I could step off the loader from the operators seat level onto the ground. I motioned to the driver to get out of the truck and come over to where I was standing and when he got there I quietly told him that I think he may need a wrecker if he had plans to make anymore loads for the day. He got all defensive and yelled that It was my responsibility if he got stuck and it was about then that I started to feel the hair start to stand up on the back of my neck and I told him it probably would be better if he got back into his truck and called his boss before something bad happened to him and he came at me and just as I was dragging the track shovel from behind the seat the cops rolled up and saved him from a terrible fate. They called a wrecker...a really big one and got the truck out once he was out of the way I got the loader out and then the mexican standoff began. The wrecker man wanted to get paid and everyone was pointing the finger at everyone else when the truck drivers boss man showed up. The driver told his side then I told mine the boss man paid the wrecker dude and the truck driver walked off quietly into the sunset after being fired on the spot.

The next day I ordered more stone after fixing the driveway pipe and I dumped 8 big loads of large stone and still couldn't get a truck backed all the way off the road before it became mired up to the axles so I scrapped the idea and decided to clean up the rest of the right away while I had time to think about what to do next because I only had the loader for a few days and needed to get as much as I could get done with the time I had left.

Once the road way was cleared of all the stumps and trees and the top dirt removed I could get back to the entrance to try and figure out what I could salvage. I pushed as much of the gravel that the trucks dumped in that one area as far forward as I could without making any more of a mess than possible and by then I had stone mixed with mud on about 40' of the road, you just couldn't drive on it.

I had built a couple roads through a swamp one time for a hunt club and they had this huge pile of broken cinder blocks we used to build up and bridge over stumps, logs and in some places just plain water 3' deep. Those things really worked well and it really didn't take many of them to be able to back a loaded truck over them and keep going until you got to the other side of what ever you was trying to get through. One place we went across over 1/2 a mile of beaver pond swamp where the water was 4 or 5 feet deep in some places using just broken cinder block. I made the road one summer and they used it that next hunting season and the next summer went back and filled in some of the sunken in spots then covered the whole thing with bank gravel about 6" to 10" deep and once it was leveled out, watered lightly and packed down from driving back and forth on it while we were working on the road it was all as hard as a rock. I would go back there every couple years and spread a little bank gravel on the low spots and one time the beavers had really been working hard and built some new dams and that one section across the swamp was 2 feet under water. I broke out a section of the dam and drained it off and once the water drained off the road was still in good shape. That sandy bank gravel held up very well and all I had to do is put a thin layer on the surface smooth it off and it was good as new. Well, of-course we had to do some trapping of the eager beavers in the area and move them to another part of the county but no harm no foul. I guess they are still using those roads today. About 10 years after we first put them in they used them as logging roads to haul out 1700 ac of timber and pulp wood off of one piece of inaccessible land on the back side of that property. They widened them a little and covered them with grey stone from a nearby quarry while they were cutting in there.

Anyway I remembered using these broken blocks so I went to the nearby block plant to see if they were still giving them away as waste which they were and I hired one truck to haul them in as I worked them into the mud with the loader. Those things will hold up a loaded truck with no problem and after 5 loads I was already back to the place where I had spread the loads of #3's and by the second day I had a good layer all the way through the lower area and was now headed uphill to the home site. I went ahead and laid down a good 1' layer all the way to the house. It was h@ll to drive on for awhile but awhile later I bought me a small single axle dump truck so I could haul my own material when I had time and the money to do so. We had a sand and gravel company close by and they would let me drive down into the pit to get the material right out of the pit for $1.25 a ton and this was about the same stuff I had dug out of the bank to build those roads at that hunt club. It was mostly river rock that was from pea gravel sized to rocks over 8" mixed with a fine clay and sand mixture that would pack so hard you couldn't drive a pick into it. I hauled in a few more loads of cinder block to build up a few areas then covered the whole thing with a foot of this pit material and I never put any crushed stone on it for years. After about 8 years it had a few pot holes that came up after we had a really cold wet winter and I used my ol 8" H beam/ drag to smooth it out a little then covered it with and thin layer of crush a run and that is all that has been done to my road for over 18 years now. I'll drag it once a year to smooth out a few wrinkles and I'm good to go.

Dang! sorry I got carried away.:drink:

 

[sdkubota]

Great story mx842...I have many similar stories...

My engineering soils professor would say..."bad soil...don't build there!" Unfortunately, we don't always have that option but it is still very good advice.