spongy driveway

[bigballer]

a few weeks ago i noticed a section of my driveway which is getting spongy just above the 90 degree turn. evelvation drops about 30-40 ft from the top to the bottom and it's about 500' in length. we've had a really wet winter and it seems the gound under the gravel in this one area is saturated and obviously holding alot of water. there are some shallow ditches along the drive but when it rains (and here in the NW it RAINS) water collects in the wheel tracks and flows all the way down, in heavy rains can see the water running down. this weekend i dug the ditch a little deeper and built up the corner with gravel in hopes to allow some of this pressure to release but i'm afrad this isn't really going to solve the root cause. the turn is very close to the corner post of the neighboring property and i don't have alot of room to dig so the ditch right at the corner is about 6" deep but only a foot wide. in the pic with the tractor the area that's spongy is just below the loader on the left. i have some room to swing the driveway out away from the corner but wanted to get some other ideas on what to do here.

 

[beenthere]

From the first pic, looks like the corner of the drive should be moved out several feet which might mean taking the corner a bit slower. But a deeper ditch looks to be in order, and possibly a deeper road bed under the drive at that corner.
Keep a good slope to the drive so any surface water runs to the ditch and not down a wheel track.
Good drainage leads to a solid roadbed. That comes with deep ditches.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

You aren't kidding it rains here in Washington.. I am wondering if burying perf pipe with a sand sock over it to collect some of the water would work? You would have to dig the trench deep enough then lay in some rock and the perf pipe. Then cover it with more rock. I think some of the guys on here can give you better answers. One thing I look for is old stumps that have been covered over that eventually rot out and create sink holes.

 

[Egon]

Got any place to drain the water to?

 

[CurlyDave]

Just like beenthere, I foresee a driveway move several feet away from that property corner.

Think hard about a culvert under the driveway to a ditch on the side opposite the property corner, which looks to be lower.

You have all the attachments one would need to do the job right. Increase the depth of the ditch on the property corner side, line it with large rock or rip-rap to make a catch basin and put a 12" culvert under the existing drive over to the low side. Fill with rock and you are done. Around here, a 20' length of plastic culvert (smooth inside, corrugated outside) is about $100. You would need ~ 30', but I would get two full sticks just so I didn't get one cut a foot too short and have to re-purchase.

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Another possibility would be to talk to the owner of the property with the corner into your driveway. It looks to me that if you could buy a triangle of land maybe 6' by 6' along the fence lines (18 square feet) you could keep your driveway in the existing spot and just put a bigger ditch in the new area. Of course, he would need to modify his fence corner, so that might not go over so well.

 

[Mpking]

I live in SW Washington and have been having the same problems with water running down the wheel paths like little rivers. I'll add to the comments above by suggesting that you might be able to avoid some of the water down at the corner by crowning the length of your driveway a bit more and scraping down the edges so there is not a little wall to keep the water in. It looks like from the 2nd pic you posted that this might be happening on the left hand edge. That way the water can run off along the entire length of the driveway instead of being channeled down to the curve where it collects. I did this to my 1/2 mile road without adding any gravel and it has helped quite a bit.

 

[bcp]

I've put in several cross-driveway small dips and bumps to drain the water to the side instead of running down the wheel tracks. Sort of like speedbumps on the driveway.

Bruce