DIY poor man gravel road dust control

[sandman2234]

The smoother you make the road, the faster cars will drive down it. Let the potholes get deep enough and you won't have dust from cars!
(I maintain a dirt road that used to belong to my sister in law, and the dozen or so houses don't have a viable way of smoothing it out)
David from jax

 

[Eagle1]

The smoother you make the road, the faster cars will drive down it. Let the potholes get deep enough and you won't have dust from cars!
(I maintain a dirt road that used to belong to my sister in law, and the dozen or so houses don't have a viable way of smoothing it out)
David from jax

Now that is useful advice in most cases, except it won't slow ATVs a lot. Same goes for trails in the woods, if you don't trim the brush fewer people will race their ATV through, also narrow trails keep the SXS out

 

[LouNY]

I use calcium or oil, many of the paper mill products get quite slippery when wet.

 

[skramer360]

Following as well

 

[Spanner]

The smoother you make the road, the faster cars will drive down it. Let the potholes get deep enough and you won't have dust from cars!

David from jax

Makes sense.

 

[ding beep]

yup. dust control in the summers, and then again in the winters for de-icing (usually applied before the storms) along with cinders at the junctions, for traction.

 

[arrow]

Used oil has worked for years but is a no no in a lot of states.

And yet there are thousands of gallons of motor oil spread on our hiways from auto and truck leaks every day.
I’m surprised that wasn’t used as an excuse for the electric push.

 

[deezler]

What's wrong with a little dust from your gravel driveway? I couldn't imagine spending the time and effort to spread toxic chemicals on my natural driveway just because of some dust, personally.

But this is also why my gravel applications on my driveway are only with clean, washed stone - no fines. Good clean gravel rocks means very little dust. Washed limestone packs in nice and stable, and looks nice. Plus then when it rains you don't get any splatter of the fines as mud, either. Nor do you get any potholes.

Just my 2c but for the life of me, I can't really understand why people turn their gravel driveways into a splattery, pot-holed mess by using gravel mixes with lots of fines in them.

 

[deezler]

I have a 600' gravel drive and dust has killed me over the years. I've tried 53s, crushed concrete, recycled asphalt and they all sucked. Now I used washed #8 limestone, it is by far the best material I've ever used. Almost no dust.

No way I'd use old oil or calcium.

Exactly! Just get "washed" stone without fines/dust in it, and it's nearly perfect. Some folks complain about the stone moving around, but my 1000' driveway has no issues even with frequent delivery trucks driving 20 mph on it.

The only caveat I will add is : be careful when snow plowing - if the top layer is loose stone and not well frozen up, you can plow it all off the base. My neighbor once tried to do me a favor and plow a snowstorm while I was at work, he put hundreds of dollars of gravel into my grass.....

 

[bigtiller]

Washed stone without fines/dust in it will consolidate but it will not compact.
My driveway had ¾ clean/washed limestone and it did a good job.

But the parking area where there is a lot of turning and maneuvering around, there was little dips, holes and high spots that needed to be smoothed out before winter so the snowblower wouldn't pick them up.