Gravel Driveways

buckeye · Nov 9, 2001

As my wife and I move towards building our new home on recently purchased land, we must come up with a way to get to the homesite. I will have to construct an approximately 1000' gravel driveway to get to the construction site. I have heard multiple suggestions from locals on what stone to use to "pave" this new driveway. I was just wondering if the forum members would have any suggestions on the following, based upon their experience:

1. Type of stone used to make the drive.
2. How deep the the stone layer was.
3. Typical cost for that stone.

The land we will build on is fairly flat and on a hilltop so it gets good drainage. I appreciate any and all insight you all may have. Thanks.

TerryinMD · Nov 9, 2001

buckeye,

Since you are just about to build your home, now is the best time to plan your driveway.

Have you had your plat drawn up yet which shows the house placement in regards to the lay of the land? If you haven't, you may want to have a surveyor lay it out for you. That way, you can plan on placing the drive with the contours to minimize drainage problems.

When we built our house, the contractor spread fist-sized stone on the drive during the construction phase. What this provided was a good base for our finished driveway upon the completion of construction. During construction, all of the large trucks and heavy equipment pushed that stone into the drive and built up a good base. Prior to moving in, our contractor then spread 1/2-1" sized gravel to finish the drive. That driveway remained solid for the first five years until we paved it with asphalt millings.

Hope this helps.

Terry

Andyfr · Nov 9, 2001

Buckeye

I have used the info from this link in the past http://www.tmac.clara.co.uk/paving/gravel01.htm#drive. This is a UK site so it may only be of limited interest. There are details of construction for drives but it might not be relevant to the US, but there again it might /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif.

When we were building on our very boggy site, the contractor went to the nearby river and dug out 2,000 tonnes of the bed for our drive. The landowner had given permission because it gets blocked as the stuff (can't think what to call it /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif) gets washed down from the hills.

There isn't a river near you is there? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Regards

MChalkley · Nov 9, 2001

Buckeye - If you could provide more detail, it would help: What kind of soil are you working with?

MarkC

rdln · Nov 9, 2001

I would ditto TerryinMD except if you have clay put down the geotextile fabric to prevent stone frome sinking into clay.

As far as depth goes make the fist sized crushed concrete (#2s, I believe) flush with original ground after scraping topsoil down to subsoil. If you are working with an old farm field topsoil is usually 6-12inches deep. Then when construcion is done top with 21AA crushed concrete or stone. Gravel would be cheaper. Make that layer at least 6in deep

Prices would vary regionally but I would range it between $10 and $15 delivered per yard for either.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by rdln on 11/09/01 01:29 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

buckeye · Nov 9, 2001

I am not really sure the type of soil. It is currently an old hay field that drains rather well. I would think it is more of a clay type of soil than any other.

alan40 · Nov 10, 2001

Your driveway sounds just like mine. I also built in an old hayfield on top of a hill but in Vermont. My driveway is only 550 ft long with a sharp turn in it. When they dug my celler we hit shale ledge so we used shale stone as our first layer (6 inchs). Good for drainage. As for run off be careful. My field has just a little slant to it but with a good rain the water would really build up. We put a culvert in about half way in the driveway and built ditches to divert the water to the culvert. We then laid in about 6 inchs of gravel with to 2 inch stones on top of the crushed slate. We've used it for four years and this year just got the start of a first pothole. With a warning to snowblowers. The 2 inch rocks are pretty tough and can fly a long ways /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif!!!! Beside that there you are sitting up nice as can be on your tractor and there go's a loud sharp noise!! It can make you spill your coffee!! /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif Of course this was with a Toro garden tractor and not Old Blue.
Good luck with your driveway/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif and house construction/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif It's a learning experiance!!!!
Al

MChalkley · Nov 10, 2001

Buckeye - Rdln pretty well summed up the ideal way to construct a gravel drive. In some places, you can get away with out the fist sized layer, but you'll end up having to add more 21A sooner than later.

One note about the 21A. Around here (Eastern VA), at least half of the sources will try to sell you crusher run (which they all erroneously seem to call "crush & run", for some reason) instead of 21A. They'll tell you "it's the same thing", "it's better than 21A", "21A doesn't work well around here", you name it, everything but the truth, which is that they'd rather sell you crusher run because it it's cheaper for them to get, but they get to charge you the same price for it. Some places around here will even tell you they can't get it - that's your cue to go somewhere else. You need 21A as opposed to crusher run because it has enough stone in it to provide a travel surface, and enough fines in it to keep the stone from rolling. Good quality 21A will, over time, give you a surface almost like asphalt. Crusher run will continually pump under travel and never harden, eventually washing away on slopes, unless you've got a really good base, like the fist sized stone Rdln mentioned, and keep it to as thin a layer as is necessary to fill in around the larger stone, in which case it won't go anywhere, but it'll still "pump", stay soft, and eventually "pothole" or "ripple" in between the larger stone. So, don't let 'em sucker you, assuming they try to pull the same stunt in your area.

MarkC

DocHeb · Nov 10, 2001

How can you tell the difference between crusher run and 21A by looking?

MChalkley · Nov 10, 2001

DocHeb - To be technically accurate, I should say that all 21A is crusher run, but not all crusher run is 21A. Crusher run just means that the fines from the crushing process are included. Most places that sell "gravel" labelled as just plain crusher run give you almost all fines. The 21A designation specifies that at least 25% (I think) of the product by weight is between 3/8" and 1" in size. Usually, with DOT-grade 21A, I think about 40% by weight in supposed to be in that range.

So, to answer your question, cheap generic crusher run will be almost all 3/8" or smaller particles, whereas 21A (which is technically a grade of crusher run) will be 25%-40% larger particles between 3/8" and 1" in size.

MarkC