Portland cement or other trick for turning a soup pot into a driveway?

[Larry Caldwell]

There's always a corduroy road. No prep, and it will last until the trees rot.

Thoughts from the Woods: Corduroy Road Update

 

[bunyip]

Good for a short run but shakes up the beer delivery...
I am trying to be practical.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Keep in mind, this won't be a heavily traveled road. 2/3 of it will be an outdoor storage area ("junkyard"). Does that change anything?

Assuming that does not change anything, what you describe sounds pretty costly. Would it be possibly cheaper to have a contractor come and have the whole thing? Total area is 5000-6000 square feet.

My first paragraph was just to give background for the second paragraph, my solution for you. Should not be that expensive and can be done in stages. Generally rock is cheap. Getting your new finish grade well above expected high water level will pay the most dividend. Once it dries out some and the crushed rock keys together it will probably withstand the next high water episode. No need to excavate any thing till the rock starts to displace the muck which will have to be removed from the around edges. Last place I owned had some boggy places along a stream that I kept dumping rock and building up. Soon I was able to plant grass over it.

Ron

 

[Jstpssng]

I understand what the OP said, but wanted to point out that using the Geotextile as a base is considered roughly the equivelant of a foot and a half of gravel. We put it down over wet areas such as peat bogs, gravel it and run 100,000 lb log trucks across it.

 

[LouNY]

The heavy road base fabric is the best way to go, if you can pull a few inches of mud out of the way lay the fabric down,
then have the gravel haulers tailgate it out in reverse.

 

[strantor]

The heavy road base fabric is the best way to go, if you can pull a few inches of mud out of the way lay the fabric down,
then have the gravel haulers tailgate it out in reverse.

Eureka! I have been thinking and re-thinking how I should get the ground firm enough for the trucks to tailgate the road base in over the fabric without tearing it. The "best" I had come up with so far was to lay out 2x12s for them to drive on and then dig them out before compacting. Never once occurred to me that the trucks go both forward and backward, just like every other wheeled vehicle.

 

[strantor]

I got (what I think is) a good deal on 2 huge rolls of road fabric today. The seller was a corrugated pipe sales place that I guess started trying to offer the fabric a while back and had trouble selling it. The date code on it is 2017 and it's probably been sitting outdoors since then, but seems in good shape and even if it's degraded, probably only only the first few wraps are affected. They had long rolls of thin stuff and shorter rolls of thick/heavy stuff. I got 2 rolls of the thick/heavy stuff. According to the label they're just over 200lbs, but being saturated with rain I estimate about 400lbs each

 

[dmccarty]

I got (what I think is) a good deal on 2 huge rolls of road fabric today. The seller was a corrugated pipe sales place that I guess started trying to offer the fabric a while back and had trouble selling it. The date code on it is 2017 and it's probably been sitting outdoors since then, but seems in good shape and even if it's degraded, probably only only the first few wraps are affected. They had long rolls of thin stuff and shorter rolls of thick/heavy stuff. I got 2 rolls of the thick/heavy stuff. According to the label they're just over 200lbs, but being saturated with rain I estimate about 400lbs each

The geotextile fabric I used is a heavy mesh and had an oily smell. Some of it has been exposed around tree roots for over 15 years and I don't see any difference in the stuff.

Later,
Dan

 

[thekkfan]

I got (what I think is) a good deal on 2 huge rolls of road fabric today. The seller was a corrugated pipe sales place that I guess started trying to offer the fabric a while back and had trouble selling it. The date code on it is 2017 and it's probably been sitting outdoors since then, but seems in good shape and even if it's degraded, probably only only the first few wraps are affected. They had long rolls of thin stuff and shorter rolls of thick/heavy stuff. I got 2 rolls of the thick/heavy stuff. According to the label they're just over 200lbs, but being saturated with rain I estimate about 400lbs each

That will work. Did he sell you pins also?

 

[strantor]

That will work. Did he sell you pins also?

Nope. No pins. I guess I need to get some. What size would you recommend? I'm looking at some on Amazon right now and it seems the most common size is 6" but I don't know if that's going to be enough (I assume they need to go deep enough to hit hard[er] soil?)