Which Gravel for Drive?

[jimmyj]

They are a by product of resurfacing. They use a big giant grinder machine to grind off the top layer of a road and the bits they grind up are either grindings or sweepings. Up here we call a road that has been ground a corduroy road due to the way it looks and feels after the grinder has been on it. I'm sure most of you have seen it before.

Just 10 years ago they were trying to find people to take the stuff for free. Now they recycle it and you have to pay for it (like everything else nowadays).

I have not checked the price in a while but I know my local gravel hauler can get it. Even if it's a bit more than stone, it would be worth it.

 

[TwinWillows]

Our drive is about 1200 ft & was "red rock" when we moved in. Red rock seems to be a local term for the stuff dug out of local stone pits... Anyway, it's a dirty well graded material generally comprised of round river stone & sand.

When we had some $'s we laid down what's locally called Dense Grade. This is a well graded crushed limestone material that runs 3/4" minus. It packed well & formed a good running surface. I've had to grade the road several times a year to knock the center hump down & spread that material back into the tire track areas. In another year or 2 I'll have to again lay down dense grade just to build back up the roadbase. I realize that's $'s but the length of the drive & price of geotextile material is just too much to for us to justify doing otherwise.

If your crusher run is almost gone you might want to consider geotextile fabric before laying down any more stone.

 

[LBrown59]

Does anybody use slag?

 

[75H2]

Does anybody use slag?

I live in an old (former) steel town. We have about 100 years worth of slag around. I'm using a little bit for a construction drive & for a pad under a storage shed. Because slag is round it doesn't seem to do well on a driveway. It doesn't lock together like crushed rock. It's really noticeable on any incline. Your tires will slide accelerating or stopping with any aggression at all. I also used a little for bedding in drain lines.

The positives are the cost. It's less than half that of stone. But for driveways to a home it wouldn't be my first choice. Our finished drive will be stone

 

[LBrown59]

[Our slag isn't round.
It is irregular shaped.
It is much preferred here over gravel stone or rock as a driveway surface.
Our slag makes a far better/nicer drive way surface than any of those.
The nice thing about it is it cost way less per ton than the others and weights a lot less which means you get a lot more cubic feet of it per ton than the others meaning less of it covers more area.
== L B ==

I live in an old (former) steel town. We have about 100 years worth of slag around. I'm using a little bit for a construction drive & for a pad under a storage shed. Because slag is round it doesn't seem to do well on a driveway. It doesn't lock together like crushed rock. It's really noticeable on any incline. Your tires will slide accelerating or stopping with any aggression at all. I also used a little for bedding in drain lines.

The positives are the cost. It's less than half that of stone. But for driveways to a home it wouldn't be my first choice. Our finished drive will be stone

Our slag comes from a plant that produces Ferro alloys that are sold to various steel mills that produce various types of steels.
Ferro alloys are a necessary ingredient in all the various kinds of steel.
What steel mill is your slag from and what kind of steel do they produce.
Could be that different mills produce slag with deferring characteristics.

 

[Hammy]

What exactly is "slag"?

 

[RobS]

This question is right up my alley (so to speak).

Anyhow, about 8 years ago we bought ashphalt road sweepings...

Hi Jimmy, I was talking to a guy about this over the weekend. We have crushed concrete which is dusty in the dry weather and tracks a fair amount of "mud" in the wet. He likes the recycled asphalt but says it will track black onto other surfaces. Have you had this problem at all?

 

[LBrown59]

What exactly is "slag"?

A by product from the production of steel from iron ore.

 

[LBrown59]

We have crushed concrete which is dusty in the dry weather and tracks a fair amount of "mud" in the wet.

We also have crushed limestone which is extremely dirty dusty and sloppy.
When it's wet it's turns to a gray muddy color and tracks onto your garage and pole building floors whenever you drive into them with anything.
It also gets on your walks and all over your carpet etc.
It's a real mess.

I had it once/never again.

I had to cover it up with 4'' of slag to get rid of the mess.
Wasted a bunch of money on the limestone cause all I i needed was the slag.
== L B ==

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

I used a 6" deep base of 3 minus with fines, compact it good, then added 3-4" of "road mix" here, but we have a lot of clay in our soils so there's a lot of movement with the seasons.