I built a driveway.

[dmccarty]

I FINALLY got my last bill for my last loads of material.

I have mentioned in a few threads that I was building a
driveway to my house site. With the last bill, the pictures
developed and put on CD I can finally share what I did and
what I would do differently. I learned a few things but
nothing major.

The drive is 500 feet long from the private road to the house
site. The first 100 feet crosses a low spot where I put in a
15 inch culvert. The culvert was free so I used it. It cost
me more money in gravel but I think its the right size. The
low spot took quite a few loads of ABC to fill in and cover
the pipe.

After the first 100 feet the drive makes an almost 90 degree
turn to the left and after 50 feet or so make more than a 90
degree turn to the left. Its a big S that we wanted to hide
the house. After the S curve the drive runs roughly straight
until it hits a turn around cirlce. I think the circle is about 50
feet across. Could be more but 50 is close enough. Once
I cut down one little sapling or two, my F350 Crew Cab and
8 feet of bed will JUST make the turn if I hit I do it right.
/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif The drive has to fit between the lot lines, a power
box and the septic field so I did not have alot of wiggle room.
But it will turn. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I used a nonwoven geotextile fabric along the entire drive.
The drive is around 500 feet long but I used 740 feet of fabric.
Where the drive and private road intersect I made the drive
in a fan shape to allow plenty of room to turn in and out
of the driveway. The drive funnels down to fit across the
double walled plastic culvert. For the left turn I widened
the curve so there would be plenty of turning space as well.
From the first curve the drive narrows to about 13 feet wide
until it hits the right turn which is wider to helps the turns.
The straight away to the turning circle is about 12.5 feet wide.
The turning circle is 12.5 feet wide in some places and around
18 feet for roughly 2/3rds of the circle. If you have a big
truck you have to know JUST how to make the turn! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Around the culvert I put in about 10 tons of rip rap to stabilize
the roadbed. At that point the there is about 2 feet of ABC
above grade. The ABC locks in like concrete after it gets wet
and I don't think it would move but the rip rap is a good
insurance policy.

Material List.
ABC - 306.01 tons.
Rip Rap - 16.48 tons. Roughly 10 tons used.
Fabric - 740 linear feet.

I'll post pictures tomorrow. I left the CD at work. I'll post
again on Lessons Learned.

Hope this helps.
Dan McCarty

 

[dmccarty]

Lessons Learned.

I used geotextile fabric for a couple of reasons. Once the
drought is over my land takes forever to dry out. Its all
clay and the ABC would be pushed into the ground when
its wet in no time. With the first 100 feet of the drive going
through an area that drains a couple of acres so I really had
to make sure the gravel did not move. Plus the fabric allows
less gravel to be put down so it save you money. Hopefully
the drive will not rut up and will only require a bit box blading
from time to time.

To use the fabric its really helpful to have the driveway
graded as smooth as possible before laying the textile. I did
this for the first 300+ feet but the last 200 feet or so had so
many root and rocks that it was very hard to grade. The
more I graded rocky and rootier it got. So I just put down
the fabric.

What happens is that the fabric bunches up over the roots and
rocks. You can fight this a bit by tossing rocks to hold down
the fabric but its a pain. When you come into spread the
gravel it just takes a box blade tooth, a tire, or the FEL to
touch that fabric and up it comes out of the gravel. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
This is a bad thing. It means you get to use a shovel. Its
not fun. Its almost impossible depending on where this
happens to get the fabric down straight. Which makes it
easier to catch on the next pass. Which means you get to use
the shovel again. Did I mention that its August? In the
middle of a drought? In the South? Hot and Humid? And
the dump truck is due back any second? Or the dump truck
is ready to dump? The shovel is a bad thing at this point!
/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

So get the driveway grade, graded as smooth as possible. If
you can.

TAKE THE TEETH OUT OF YOU BOXBLADE. The highest carry
position for the teeth in the my boxblade is not high enough to
do what I was doing. The dump truck just dumped the pile
where I told him. He really could not spread the material
for me due to the trees. Sometimes the raised bed was within
inches of a tree. Less than six inches. So this left me with a
pile of ABC 13 feet across and about six feet tall. The 4700
could move this, carefully, by climbing the pile and pushing it
over bit by bit. But this put the tractor at a high angle. And if
the box blade was just right it would dig into the gravel. And
at the worst possible time, well there is no good time, grab
fabric. Not fun. So raise the teeth up as far as possilbe or
just take them out.

ABC seems to be the best gravel for this from what I can read
and what I see. I was very worried about not being able to
compact the gravel. This was not a problem. I think the
combination of me running all over the drive just moving
the ABC, the 54,000 pound truck, and my little itty bitty F350
weighing in at 7,700 pounds compacted the gravel just fine.
I had no problems with the dump truck rutting up the drive.
My neighbors who did not use fabric or ABC. Their drive
rutted up real bad during construction. I had over 20 loads
delivered on the drive and did not have a problem. The
First part of the drive was driven over constantly, 40 trips,
and no rutting.

Once it rained, and I got lucky with the rain, the water seemed
to lock the big gravel with fines washed into the bed. One of
the OH s...t! with hitting the fabric and having to get the
shovel is that the textile would pull in a well compacted area.
Meaning the dump truck rolled over the spot once. This stuff
was like concrete.....

The private road does not have fabric. The road got wet a few
times and one heavy delivery day in particular. I had to
drop ABC where the trucks where backing up since they
where tearing up the road. Once they got onto the driveway
things where ok. But the road took some damage with the
trucks pushing the gravel into the roadbed.

The same day I parked my truck out of the way which means
on the side of the road where they underground power was
trenched. Another word for this would be M U D. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I
had to dump a couple bucket loads of ABC near my tailgate
to keep my boots from gaining 20 pounds with the mud
hitchhikers. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif This ABC was just on the mud. I parked
the tractor in that spot during the day and by nightfall the ABC
was pushed into the mud.

But the driveway was fine. Certainly short term the fabric
works. Its very thick material and somewhat tough to tear.
It will dull a razor real quick. Its also hot as hades when
rolled out in a cloudless, sunny NC summer day! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif And
it stinks when hot. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif But it holds gravel real well! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

One thing I'm not happy with is my grading of the last load
of ABC. Somehow I managed to get an uneven spread of
fines and gravel. I think this is partly due to the uneven
grading I did with the rocks and roots. So in spots I have
"muddy" areas with lots of fines and other areas that are
loose with lots of big gravel. I'm really not sure how this
happened. I'm thinking that I just over graded if that makes
sense. I also cut down in some places near the culvert that
I did not mean to do which left me with "muddy" areas.

No muddy does not mean there was mud its just an area that
has to many fines and not enough big gravel. The stuff does
not stick to your boots or tires. But its just not right. Maybe
I'm to ****. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I'm not worried about this because once the house is built I'm
going to bring in two more loads of ABC and do a final
grading. No good reason to do this except I want to.

Well that is enough for now. This must be the longest post I
have ever done and I'm a wordy so and so.... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I'll post some pictures Tuesday.....

Hope this helps...
Dan McCarty

 

[gerard]

One thing I learned about the fabric by watching paving companies was to make sure you have plenty (6 inches at least) of stone on top of the fabric before you start grading. Also they dig a small trench where the fabric starts and you bury the end. Helps anchor it. Do the same where two ends meet. If you have enough base on top you don't catch it when grading. Sounds like you had quite a project!!!!

 

[dmccarty]

gerard,

Yep, you need base to keep from hitting the fabric. And
getting lots of base with the rocks and stones is hard to do.
Well its not hard, just cost money! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I figured I would put down about 3-4 inches of ABC on the
fabric. In areas that where level and did not have to be built
up I think I ended up with the 3-4 inchs of gravel. Its really
not alot when you think about it but its working so far. Its
real nice to be able to pull up the driveway and park in shade
that will last all day! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I did think about digging in the fabric at the start but I did not
do so. I can alway go back and bury the ends if I need to.

Yep, it was quite a project. Now I get to build a barn. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I sure an glad there are a bunch of barn building threads to
read! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Here is what the driveway grade looked like after about
6-8 30+ inch hardwood stumps had been pulled. I have a
picture of the stumps but I can find them.

This is the driveway where it intersects the private road.

 

[dmccarty]

Same spot but with the fabric laid out. This is two lengths
overlapping to get a wedge shapped area to turn into from
the road.

 

[dmccarty]

Same spot, different angle and better picture! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

This is two loads, about 16 tons of ABC. The trucks backed
up on the fabric with out any problems. It was the only time
that the trucks went on the fabric. This area was smoothed
out real well. A few hundred feet up the drive, driving trucks
on the fabric would have been a bad thing.

Each load would be about 5-6 feet tall about at least 13 feet
wide.

 

[dmccarty]

Same spot with about 4 loads, 64 tons on the fabric.

The culvert is in place. There is a gap that is not apparent
between the ABC and the culvert. Just ran out of gravel
at that point.

I thought about trenching down 6 inches or so to get the
culvert a little lower. This would have saved me a load of
gravel but in the end I decided it was not worth the work.
The culvert sitting on grade was at just the right angle to
have the water flow. If I trenched down I would have spent
alot of time getting the angle just right.

We have had some good down pours, I got caught in one and
watched the water interact with the road and culvert. Every
thing works fine. At least so far! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[dmccarty]

This is taken 25 feet on the driveway and with the culvert
covered. The driveway is going off to the left and about
to make a right hand turn. There is something like 6 loads
of ABC, about 100 tons, to get to and over the culvert. The
left curve to the right turn took another two loads.

 

[dmccarty]

Moving a few feet to the right and about 16 hours in work
time in the future, this is a picture of the road that was
all but finished graded and with about 10 tons of rip rap
installed to stablize the road bed. From grade to the top of
the driveway is about 24 inches.