Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice?

   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #91  
Thats not the case around here. I can buy the same limestone that the state or county uses. They dont have separate piles. There is no "homeowner or shady contractor" pile.
Nor here.
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #92  
Thats not the case around here. I can buy the same limestone that the state or county uses. They dont have separate piles. There is no "homeowner or shady contractor" pile.
I'm not saying you Can't, but if you don't ask, and don't pay the premium, many of the mines sell basically cull material. Testing is expensive.
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #93  
I'm not saying you Can't, but if you don't ask, and don't pay the premium, many of the mines sell basically cull material. Testing is expensive.
Crushed limestone is crushed limestone. I dont need expensive testing to tell me its freaking limestone.

Not sure what you mean by "basically cull material".

If I order a load of #57 crushed limestone for my driveway....and any one of the 4 or 5 quarries around me....it is the EXACT SAME PILE they sell to the counties, states, and municipalities if they need the same size stone
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #94  
I would like to compile of list of the different aggregate sizing/grading in the different parts of this country. So those that have dealt with local quarries in your states.....and know the "lingo" for your area....please share the info so I can populate a spreadsheet to post later
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #95  
Crushed limestone is crushed limestone. I dont need expensive testing to tell me its freaking limestone.

Not sure what you mean by "basically cull material".

If I order a load of #57 crushed limestone for my driveway....and any one of the 4 or 5 quarries around me....it is the EXACT SAME PILE they sell to the counties, states, and municipalities if they need the same size stone
It's the same story: the USA is a large country. Not everywhere does things the same. Limestone is rare or nonexistant in our state. We have granite and sandstone... some shale. Here, quarries sell to the resellers who make up the various piles of fill. Go to any yard and there are dozens of different mixes made from different base material, processing, clay content, fines, and sweepings. Each seller has different mixes and that is where every contractor buys material.

A mix should be the same from one seller to the next - but it is often not even close. Plus the sellers are always willing to sell from one pile and ship junk material to the unwary. Fill is expensive and scams are everywhere. Anything larger than a single homeowner project always has someone checking material before it is unloaded.

Apparently that isn't the way it is done in Ohio. But it is common elsewhere.

Last year I went to several yards before deciding on a few truckloads of screened and mixed garden soil - chosing one from many different sample piles with tested analysis. Price was $1500/load, and a load is 11 to 15 tons. When I got to the site the next day, "my yard" had sold the my ticket to another yard and their drivers had just dumped 20 tons of pit run clay. That is typical. My bad; I know how they do business.
rScotty
 
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   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #96  
I would like to eventually hear what the OP had done, and a ball park of what he paid, and if he was happy with the results.
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #97  
Every crushed gravel has a stone specification with size to call out. Every one.
mixtures of stone do not have a size call out. At most they have maximum size
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #98  
So, if you go to any of the local rock mines; and get "limerock road base" without a approval number, that is blasted or pit dug rock, crushed and piled. It does Not have a max other then the screen on the crusher, and has what fines come out. The approved material does have a max size, and an allowable percentage passing each sieve, and an % passing the #200 (dust). Literal, that's what you order, limerock road base; not ABC123, "limerock road base". If it's got a DOT approved pit material number, it is tested at regular intervels; but if it does not; it is on the end client to do any testing want. This is not a manufactured product, it's straight out of a pit in the ground. The material changes over time, that's why the continued testing is required to stay approved. Commercial construction projects, they have an independent testing lab sample for proctor, LBR, and all; but I Highly doubt anyone is taking LBRs, or density tests on a residential driveway.

Rainy weeks, the material will have high moisture content, dry spells, if it's been in a pile, it's gonna need a water truck.

Think of it like buying clean fill; the contractor or owners QC is going to have to sample at regular "lots" but you not going to say "send me a load of 0.5mm to 2mm sand, with 12% silt";
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #99  
Attached is an example of approved pits in Central FLa
Screenshot_20230406_164516_Drive.jpg
 
   / Any Excavation Professionals Feel Like Giving Advice? #100  
 
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