"Trail" driveway: How do I improve it?

[EddieWalker]

Dan,

Why not bring in more of that heavy clay to build up the road bed? Gravel is expensive and dirt is usualy quite a bit cheaper. Dig out the wet areas and set that muddy stuff aside somewhere for it to dry out, then bring in clay or other suituable fill material and build up the road bed just like you would a house pad. Get the dirt part of it up to grade and compact it. Then the water will naturaly run away from the road and where you want it. Then add gravel to the top of the dirt that has been built up above grade.

Eddie

 

[beppington]

Just learned: $437 for 21 yards of the scrap rock.

Yikes: So, I'm kinda wanting to make sure I have a good plan before proceeding.

I can operate the tractor for a looong time for that amount of money, so I think I'm going to try some tractor work as the first step: Box blade & grading scraper on the entire trail to 1) remove all grassy material, & 2) create ditches on both sides the entire length of the driveway. I'm hoping that will dry out (& keep dry) the 2 muddy areas.

One thing I'm not clear on: My 2 muddy areas seem to be clay, whereas the rest of the trail that isn't muddy is more sand-based. So, it would "seem" wise to dig the clay out of there & re-fill the hole with say builder's sand (what all builders here use for house foundations). But this goes against Eddie's mention of actually using clay, even bringing it in ... ?

 

[Highbeam]

Clay makes great roads if it is shaped properly and compacted while it is dry. You need to get it dry and keep it dry and it will provide a great foundation for gravel.

Once wet, it turns to pumpy snot that will eat rock and tires like a monster.

If you were trying to do this work in the wet season and the muddy area were already wet then I would recommend removal of the clay and replacement with either dry clay or some other import. Since it is already dry, you can shape it now.

I like using fabric when the underlying soil is something that might possibly squirt up and contaminate the gravel. At that point you would have a gravelly clay snot mix that will get ruts and get wetter which means it will turn to the pumpy snot monster. Your goal is to shape the clay and keep it shaped so that it will shed water.

 

[dmccarty]

Dan,

Why not bring in more of that heavy clay to build up the road bed? Gravel is expensive and dirt is usualy quite a bit cheaper. Dig out the wet areas and set that muddy stuff aside somewhere for it to dry out, then bring in clay or other suituable fill material and build up the road bed just like you would a house pad. Get the dirt part of it up to grade and compact it. Then the water will naturaly run away from the road and where you want it. Then add gravel to the top of the dirt that has been built up above grade.

Eddie

Clay is the problem. Taking out my clay and putting in more clay that cost money, does nothing but cost me money and time. We just need to add a couple inches of gravel.

I had clay brought it to spread in the yard and it was not much cheaper than ABC. The quarry is near us and the trucking cost for gravel is lower than clay. But why do I want clay? I have got enough of that crap.

When our soil gets wet it gets messy. The areas I am talking about are NOT low areas. In fact one of them is almost at the top of a hill and is the highest point for a mile or so. If the soil gets wet it gets messy.

The huge advantage of fabric is that it keeps the gravel from being mixed with soil. Our road is gravel on clay. Every couple of years I have to regrade the road because the gravel is pushed into the clay and pot holes form. I do NOT have this problem on our driveway built with fabric. We should have 4-6 inches of gravel on our driveway. Instead we have 2-4 inches. If we had 4-6 inches the water the water would not be getting on a section of driveway and causing nitty little issues.

Our driveway is 500-600 feet from the road with a turning circle. From the circle the driveway goes back another 100-150 feet with one area being about 36'x100'. All of it has fabric under the gravel. The neighbors with just gravel are constantly dropping more gravel and regrading. I just have to touch up the 100-200 foot section that gets water on the gravel. The vast majority of our driveway requires no work at all to maintain. Well, that is not quite true. I have to spray Roundup to kill the weeds.

None of the driveway is flat, it all runs down hill.

The driveway/road contractors around here do not want to use fabric because it would keep them from making more money dropping more gravel and regrading. I see people on our local mailing list/BBS needing their driveway redone. If they did it right with fabric the first time, they would be done.

I will not put down gravel for a driveway or even a walk way without using fabric. I have used fabric under our gravel walkways. Fabric comes in 3 foot widths.

Later,
Dan

 

[JB4310]

Remove 8-12 inches of the clay in those muddy areas and fill it with a large process road base material, that's 2 inch stone mixed with smaller stone and fine chips (dust).
You shouldn't even need fabric for light to medium vehicle traffic.

But if you do use the heavy woven (mesh) fabric, you wouldn't have to remove as much of the clay, and you would use less stone. Just takes a fraction more skill level.

Around here clay is nasty unstable stuff, I've heard of some clays that are workable but not ours. Just today I went by some utility upgrade work sites in the city and everywhere they had to excavate, they just stock piled the clay in huge piles and brought in a better quality material for all the back fills.
I understand why, even though the clay was fairly dry and didn't look to bad. They just couldn't take the chance using it under the road on these very extensive and expensive infrastructure projects.

I've made the mistake of trying to reuse the clay on projects, ended up with jello yards

JB.

 

[Egon]

One thing I'm not clear on: My 2 muddy areas seem to be clay, whereas the rest of the trail that isn't muddy is more sand-based. So, it would "seem" wise to dig the clay out of there & re-fill the hole with say builder's sand (what all builders here use for house foundations). But this goes against Eddie's mention of actually using clay, even bringing it in ... ?

Maybe check out the drainage situation on those troublesome clay areas!:thumbsup:

It might explain the mud!

Building roads is pretty simple. Establish drainage, get rid of organics and bring in materials that can be compacted and top with a waterproof coating of some sort that will protect the base from getting wet.:thumbsup:

Eddie can build a road for me anytime.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Chilly807]

Remove 8-12 inches of the clay in those muddy areas and fill it with a large process road base material, that's 2 inch stone mixed with smaller stone and fine chips (dust).

+1

We put in a driveway a few years ago, the excavator operator dug out at least a foot or two of topsoil and clay, then built it back up with what we call pit-run rock, which is a mix of rock up to 6 inch, fines, smaller shards of rock, etc.

Hauling locally, it wasn't expensive. Including excavator time and culverts with concrete ends the whole driveway (250 feet) cost about $3500. More than I really wanted to spend at the time, but you can drive a concrete truck over it any day of the year you like without worrying about damage. We've since top dressed it with class A gravel, 3/4" rock plus fines

Ours is 30 feet wide at the road and narrows toward the top.

Sean

 

[AGGIE00]

The cheapeast and by far best way to fix areas with rotten clay is lime. And if you have a tiller for your tractor it will do the trick. Just scratch up the clay with scarifiers and spread out bag lime to the soil. Clay weighs about 100 lbs/cf, so do the math to add 4-6% lime by weight. Then mix in the lime with the scarifiers or tiller. Let it cook for 48hrs and mix again with water. Then roll it with your loaded tractor and problem solved. If you have sand then use portland cement, not sackcrete, but straight cement and mix it in with water. No remixing with cement. This is the same scaled back way we build highways on high PI soils. It is cheap and only takes a little time for a permanent fix. Filter fabric is too expensive and doesn't stabilize the soil.

 

[kg7il]

I have to say that road is absolutely beautiful. I wouldn't want to do anything to it if it's been working for years. It's hard to get something that pretty by working at it.

 

[keegs]

I just had about 300 feet or so of mine done. It was as you describe, muddy water pooling in spots when it rains and as well during spring when the snow is melting. This is a low spot in the drive but no flood plain involved. Passing over it when wet would create ruts, nothing to get stuck in but would get the vehicles muddy.

The guy I use hauled in several dump loads of larger stone, maybe hardball size, for a 6-8 inch base over what was there and then put a topping of smaller stone over that.

The material he uses isn't quarry process but rather something he calls bank run. The stone is smooth. It's a little cheaper than the quarry stuff but most of the cost of stone up this way is in the trucking anyway.