converting a lightly used dirt road to gravel - how important is it to follow gravel road building best practices?

[Sebculb]

Try putting down geotextile and gravel on top of that. If you can get bigger than 3/4 that might be better. Concrete trash or shale is best, honestly.

 

[newbury]

This might need another thread BUT
I'm wanting to widen my narrow driveway (about 12' wide, 140' long) that has a steep slope on one side with about a 12' drop. The other side has about a 4' drop.
One dream was to widen on the 4' drop side and then put geotextile on the steep side (or maybe both) capped by appropriate gravel.
What would be some good sources for geotextile fabric? This is for northeast Mississippi.

 

[dadzcool52]

I am a retired civil engineer, raised on a farm in southern Illinois. I am currently building a 1500 ft gravel road to my back fields on my property. The topography is rolling hills, highest point to lowest is about 50 feet. I have added 24 inch and 48 inch reinforced concrete pipe to bridge low spots and keep good drainage. I may add geotextile fabric in some areas of the road.
The primary purpose of geotextile fabric is to prevent soil from becoming embedded in the crushed stone. If you have areas with springs or flat marshy areas that don’t drain well, the fabric will keep your crushed stone roads from being swallowed in mud. I once built a railroad through a power plant ash pond that had been abandoned and was like quicksand using fabric and 3 inch stone, compacted in 12 inch layers to a depth of six feet. Placed a Geogrid layer on top, then 18 inches of subballast. Built the rail line and we ran main line locomotives and 135 car coal trains on it. Worked like a charm.
For your farm road, if you are trying to economize, I would install a four-six inch layer of 2-3 inch stone and then three inches of one inch minus. The fines in the one inch minus will pack in nicely on the larger base stone and provide a smoother road. Use fabric if you have wet/soft sub grade. If you are on hard clay, you should be fine. It’s a farm road after all.

 

[Tony H]

Hi! I have some spots on my property that have turned from grass into dirt because I drive my equipment through those areas. I'd like to throw some gravel down to reduce the mud and dust and to make it look nicer.

I have watched youtube videos and did a fair amount of research on the proper way to build a serious gravel road, and I understand that it involves removing the topsoil, an 8" base of large stones, then another 4" of smaller gravel + fines.

I'm wondering for my use case here, where the road is only going to see very very light traffic, if I can throw a couple inches of like a 3/4" minus down over the existing compacted dirt and call it a day? Is that going to improve anything?

Has anyone done something similar on their properties? How did it turn out?

Thoughts?

Edit: I'm located in the PNW. My soil is fairly rocky and I believe it is on the clay side of the spectrum since it turns rock hard in the summer.

I made my driveway buy simply laying out that geotextile matting (I bought it on-line at Lowes) and then 8" of, what we call here, Crusher Run. It been 6 years with dump trucks, cement trucks and all building trucks driving on it. The matting REALLY helps to keep the topping from getting pushed it the earth and pushed down tire ruts. A hardly used road will be more then happy with this technique.

 

[joc664]

Hi! I have some spots on my property that have turned from grass into dirt because I drive my equipment through those areas. I'd like to throw some gravel down to reduce the mud and dust and to make it look nicer.

I have watched youtube videos and did a fair amount of research on the proper way to build a serious gravel road, and I understand that it involves removing the topsoil, an 8" base of large stones, then another 4" of smaller gravel + fines.

I'm wondering for my use case here, where the road is only going to see very very light traffic, if I can throw a couple inches of like a 3/4" minus down over the existing compacted dirt and call it a day? Is that going to improve anything?

Has anyone done something similar on their properties? How did it turn out?

Thoughts?

Edit: I'm located in the PNW. My soil is fairly rocky and I believe it is on the clay side of the spectrum since it turns rock hard in the summer.

I have a short road to my barn that gets pickup, small tractor, RV, boat trailers. It is clay soil. Old filed, put down geotextile cloth, 2-3 inches of crusher run, let it sit till rained in. Haven't done a thing to it in ten years.

 

[bigtiller]

Hi! I have some spots on my property that have turned from grass into dirt because I drive my equipment through those areas. I'd like to throw some gravel down to reduce the mud and dust and to make it look nicer.

I'm wondering for my use case here, where the road is only going to see very very light traffic, if I can throw a couple inches of like a 3/4" minus down over the existing compacted dirt and call it a day? Is that going to improve anything?

Has anyone done something similar on their properties? How did it turn out?

I had the same circumstances years ago and that is what I did. I set flags where I wanted the new driveway and the dump truck dumped 4" of 3/4 minus limestone right on top of the grass.

To keep it looking nice, I top it off with 2" ~ of 3/4 minus limestone every 6 to 8 years.

The only con is during the summer I need to spray it with glucosamine every 3 to 6 weeks to keep the weeds down.

 

[EddinKY]

I have what we call two track roads going back to my remote barns. They get farm traffic, trucks and tractors and balers, but no outside heavy trucks. I bought Geo cloth and cut two feet wide strips, layed them right on top of the grass and then had a very good and conscientious dump truck driver spread gravel in 2 tracks, with a middle blocked in his dump truck tail gate. He knew how to do it. Those two track roads have been there for 15 years. The gravel is still on top of the Geo cloth. I would do it again if I needed farm roads. I'm surprised that more people don't do two tracking, saves gravel and Geo cloth, looks nice and is easily cared for. Just mow the middle once a month. I am in limestone country so I can get great crust limestone nearby. I use something called crushed stone base. It's a mix of irregular shaped stones about one inch to 1 1/2 inches and some fines to pack together. I have found it to be by far the best for farm roads.

 

[tayl0r]

Thank you all so much for the quality responses. Seems like my best bet here is to throw down a layer of geotextile then a few inches of crusher run. Thanks!

 

[Tom Best]

another vote for the fabric first

And for the fravel

 

[Garson]

In New Brunswick, Canada we have lots of sandstone, a sedimentary rock that lays in sheets around one to four inches thick. An excavator digs out the sandstone and this breaks it up a bit with pieces 1' square or so and 3 to 4" thick. It is digs out to beautiful flagstone sometimes. We dump this 6-8" thick on roadways and track pack it with an excavator. This breaks up the top pieces of sandstone to leave a relatively smooth surface when track-packing. With light traffic you could likely do this without removing the topsoil. It's important to get the road surface higher than the surrounding soil or a swale or ditch will be necessary to keep the roadway free of water. The flat stone performs like a multitude of snowshoes. If you want the road to be smooth for fast travel then a 1 1/4" minus topping will make it pretty but that is $400 a tandem load plus delivery and spreading costs. Sandstone here is $100 a tandem load (15 tons).

When we built roads through extremely soft swampy ground we dig out stumps and turn them upside down, then push them into the roadway. Then lay down a 6" layer of sandstone, a layer of fabric and another layer of sandstone. This road carries 20 ton truckloads with no problem. I doubt you need landscape fabric in your relatively light traffic. Roadway fabric can eat up a thousand dollars quickly. And as others have said, 3/4" minus or gravel laid on top of topsoil will be a temporary solution at best.

Building a two track roadway would save material initially but then one would need to stay on the track. It's a good practice to never drive in the same track repeatedly. Straddle any road groove with each trip and you won't end up with a center hump or bushes. Alternating your path each trip is equivalent to doing a little road maintenance with each pass.