Gravel driveway prep

[Claytonfarms]

I want to extend our gravel driveway approx 100 feet to our garage. We have some old cinder block from a house we tore down on the property. I was thinking to prep the area for the driveway

1. Remove top soil down 6-8 inches.
2. Compact soil (mostly clay).
3. Lay geotextile fabric.
4. Break up cinder block and lay as flat as possible for first layer.
5. Cover cinder block with #2 or #57 stone.

Any problems with this idea?

I would rather reuse materials we have on site than haul it away and haul in stone.

 

[deezler]

If you dig out a lower driveway and fill with rock, it's just going to become a french drain. It's true you don't really want to build a road on top soil, but drainage is the most important consideration here. I would remove the top soil, than backfill with sand, then build your drive higher than the surrounding land.

Fabric is a good idea for preventing mud from swallowing your rock.

How are you going to break up the cinder block? That sounds like a torturous task to me. If you can easily break it into 4" or smaller chunks, it should work well though.

Good luck, post some pics of the area and progress for us!

 

[RDrancher]

Since you're using geo, you really don't need to remove that much organic material/dirt. I would shave the grass off as cleanly as possible and use an angled blade to pull dirt from the edges and create the center crown. If you don't have a blade, you can use a boxblade. Drop the right side of your BB as far is will go along with two of the low-side scarifiers. Once the shoulders are broken up, a few passes with the tilted BB will start pulling material towards the center, but much of it will be built up at the end. Then spread the remaining soil through the center for your crown and compact.

I don't suggest using the cinder block, but if you're wanting to get rid of it I would place it below the geo, not on top where it could form pockets and become a problem later on.

 

[Claytonfarms]

I decided to use the block. We are building in the woods so the top soil / leaves etc. were almost a foot deep in places. I dug down to the hard surface in this case mostly clay.
We put the block down then crushed it with a sledge and the backhoe. It was actually a bigger pain to remove the dirt with roots and clay mix at different depths than crushing the block. After a few passes with the backhoe most of the block has crushed nicely.

We are changing the drive a little in the front where there was an existing gravel driveway. I plan to put some of the gravel from the old drive on top of the crushed block to fill in the gaps. I will most likely leave it this way for a few months, then add geo fabric, #2 stone then crusher run.

I had a couple of extremely muddy spots a few weeks ago, about 10 feet long bad enough the backhoe sank 2 feet deep. Mud everywhere. I used the block / gravel / stone mix to fill the holes and no problems there so hopefully the driveway will holdup.

The driveway in the front is 2 feet deep all gravel, I guess it sank in the clay and they just kept adding gravel.

 

[RDrancher]

Good job and you got rid of the block too! With the geo you won't have to worry about the gravel sinking like the previous folks.

 

[Claytonfarms]

Getting rid of the block was a major plus. Getting it loaded and hauled was crazy expensive. Now what to do with the slab from an old garage??

 

[RDrancher]

Is there rebar or mesh in the slab?

 

[JohninCT]

Getting rid of the block was a major plus. Getting it loaded and hauled was crazy expensive. Now what to do with the slab from an old garage??

Rent a jackhammer and bust it up. Put the pieces on your road along with the busted up block.

 

[JohninCT]

Getting rid of the block was a major plus. Getting it loaded and hauled was crazy expensive. Now what to do with the slab from an old garage??

Rent a jackhammer and bust it up. Put the pieces on your road along with the busted up block.

 

[Claytonfarms]

I do not know about rebar. The slab is actually 3 different concrete pours. I know one area will break up easy, it is mostly 3/4" stones just from driving the loader over it. Another area is sticking out of the ground, it looks to be 8" to 10" thick.

The way the pervious owner built things who knows. When we demoed the old house, it was not attached to the foundation at all. Just 2x4 walls resting on top of the block foundation!!

We have some runoff problems already and I think the new drive is going to block some water flow. I thought of hammering the slab up and making a big drywell out of it. Depends how much trouble it is to break up.