Making crushed rock driveway from scratch?

[Ickisrulz]

I need to make a gravel (crushed rock) driveway from the road to a new barn. It's about 110 feet long by 35 feet. I have read online articles about different layers of rocks beginning with baseball size and getting smaller as you near the top of the driveway. This seems expensive and I am wondering how far from the ideal can I go? I just find it hard to believe that all the gravel driveways around here are 10-12 inches deep with thousands of dollars worth of rocks. What have you all done?

[country gent]

Alot depends on what your base is, sand clay ect ect. It also depend what you want to run over it weight wise. My driveway is in yellow sand and was originally put in around 1972. Every couple years I have to dump a couple truck loads of fine gravel to bring it up as the sand gives and the gravel sinks. Big berm packed and then fine gravel to fill level starts out good and should go awhile before needing filled up again.

[Ickisrulz]

I have about 12" of topsoil and then it's all clay under that. I'd be driving over it with 1 ton pickup, typical cars and small tractor.

[Alvarez Kelly]

Look into something called petromat. It's a woven fabric base available in wide widths. I've seen it in 12 and 14 foot wide rolls. Roll it out over your bare ground. Put base rock on that. A thin layer of 1 1/2 inch minus would work fine. Pack it with whatever you have. A dually would work. After a good packing, put 3/4 minus on top. Live with it for a few years, then fill low spots. The mat keeps the rock from disappearing into the soil, and keeps the soil from working its way above the rock. It doesn't help at all to keep out grass or weeds though.

The mat saves you a lot on rock and maintenance.

[noisewaterphd]

I've got mine on top of fill dirt (I don't know how much, but its several feet). All I did was put about 3.5" of medium gravel down and so far it has lasted over 10 years without issue. The heaviest thing I drive over it is a camp trailer loaded with ATV's in the back and my 3/4 ton.

[str8shot426]

I would lay down a 4-6 inch bed of crushed gravel. Let time and tires compact it. Add as needed.
I see no need for a 3" breaker rock base unless you are building a county highway.

[GhostHawk]

Build it up with clay from a foot down. Tractor and scraper type work. Still not cheap but cheaper than the rock. Still need a layer in the top 2 inches with some larger rock and then crushed rock or gravel on top.

Whole idea is to avoid water pockets, which can make soft spots and in some climates frost boils.

I have seen the entire front end of a tractor out of sight in a big frost boil.
Build it up with a little crown so any rain water flows away from it.

Call your local sand & gravel company, explain what you need to them, give them distances.
Let them guide you and give you an estimate.

[tygar]

crushed asphalt. I've used 57 down to 21A & that asphalt really packs into a good solid roadway & strongly resists grooves due to water runoff which was my big problem until I used it.

[sawinredneck]

The mat is a decent idea, but without a base under it, it will just sink. As you are in OK I'm assuming you've got the red sand and high water table? No need for the clay or hard pack, level it off then put down the baseball or larger rock with as much silt in it as you can find. Fortunately in KS and OK gravel still isn't that expensive. Pack that down good for a year or so, get the biggest, heaviest vehicles you can to drive over it, borrow tractors, do some concrete work, etc. Then get some 3/4" or so, with as much silt in it as you can get, we call it "KG&E" here, and level that off. It's a bloody mess for a while as the silt tracks everywhere when wet. But the 3/4" will fall into the larger rocks and the silt will set up like concrete after a while. Then go over the top of that with some clean 3/4" or 1/2", or if you can find/afford it, river rock and you will be good for 3-5yrs.
With your sandy soil, without a solid base it will just sink right into the sand with a quickness. Same with the mat, it will settle right into the sand, rather than float on the hard pan clay we have here in KS.
Sorry, it's expensive, but do it right once and keep it up every 3-5yrs, or do it all over again every 2-3yrs? Remember the old adage, "Never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it again!"? Neighbors did $1,900 worth of concrete for a new driveway, but wouldn't spend the extra $300 on re-bar. Guess what? Two years and it's all got to come back up and be done again!

[Plate plinker]

Depends on your clay but if it is soft wet and slimey you want at least #2 base then top it off with 73's I also like asphalt millings those work grate on top. I like the mat idea if the price works out for you.
Recycled concrete also makes a good surface.

Remember a good base will save you in the long run. And if you do a shedding job of it and skip the base you might have to dozer it all off and rebuild.

[Outer Rondacker]

I have something like this I am trying to do. Its a 150 foot muddy area of my driveway. I have to wait until mud season is gone. I want to put down beach ball size rocks and built up a drive two foot higher then the ground around me. I then will put in the football size stuff and get it close to level. I have the woven mat ready to go down and then I am going to drop number three on it followed by crusher run. Should be able to run anything road legal over it. Will use the bobbed deuce to pack it in. I have no clue what I am doing its a **** shoot. I say it all depends on how wet your ground is. Fabric is key. That I do know.

[quilbilly]

We have similar clay under our 150 foot long gravel driveway. After the house was built we just had many yards of 3/4" minus crushed gravel from a local quarry make a 4" thick layer then just raked and spread it evenly. After a few rainstorms and a few weeks of use, the minus part of the gravel settled to the bottom making a solid layer of virtual concrete while the 3/4" to pea sized gradually crushed with use adding to the layer. Heavy equipment like track hoes barely make a mark on the heavily used part. You just have to use Roundup regularly to keep weeds from breaking up the underlay. We had the quarry leave a pile of a couple extra yards of that 3/4 minus gravel that I occasionally wheelbarrow to weak spots or places that need better traction.

[TXGunNut]

Your soil sounds about like mine. When I moved in 10 yrs ago I had a standard gravel (1-1.5") driveway with about 3-5" depth. Not much but it worked for awhile. A few years back I added 3-4" of the same size gravel but left it a little thick towards the middle for patch material. Last fall I broke it up and smoothed it out with a box blade but it looks like I need another load of gravel this spring. I'm considering crushed asphalt but limestone gravel is easier to see when backing down a long driveway in the dark. Last thing I want to do is drag something out of the culvert, especially this time of year.

[Hick]

Depends on the ground. Here in the high desert I just had a guy come in with a truck of grindings (small chunks) from the freeway re-paving and drop it on the bare ground. My son-in law smoothed it out and that's it. Been 5 years and its just barely getting to the point of needing another truckload.

[jcren]

You don't like that Pot county clay? We have had good results with shale down here by Konawa. It is course chunks that are rough and hard to move when they dump It, but traffic breaks it down to a fairly smooth surface. Won't splash out and stays put.

[Minerat]

Look into recycled concrete sized as road base. For your drive you will need 148 cubic yards if it is one foot deep. This crushed concrete will compact well and then will begin to rehydrate (get hard) when it gets wet. It does not turn back into concrete it just makes it more stable. You can still blade it if it ruts, and is usually cheaper then raw rock (besides it will make your project more earth friendly and your greenie neighbors will like it):razz:. In some areas you can get it in 3" which can be placed in soft areas of clay to stabilize it and cover with road base. Road base is the same material they place below concrete or asphalt roads and parking lots to provide a stable base. I would also ask for their input on how deep to make it since you are going on to raw dirt.

Ok, back to the numbers, 1 cubic yard of recycled concrete road base will weigh approx 3000 lbs or 1.5 tons (111.1 #/cuft). In most cases the sand and gravel company will sell it by the ton. So you need to order 222 tons or about 10 - 18 wheeler loads (25 tons/truck). Don't go to a landscaping company it is cheaper to buy straight from the manufacture, they will sell it to you and in most cases can have is delivered (you will have to pay that cost) and rough spread it. You might have to call around a bit to find one of the gravel companies that recycles concrete but many of the government road jobs are calling for a certain percentage of recycle use on the job so you should be able to find a supplier in your area.

A rule of thumb, is buy by the yard sell by the ton because most people that are not gravel people think that volume equals weight and in rock as in lead that is a bad assumption. SO ALWAYS know how they are selling it because of you get 100 tons when you expected 100 yards you will be short by one-third for your job. If in doubt ask the supplier what conversion factor they use or ask how much it weighs per cubic foot (cuft) so than you can calculate how much each yard weighs by multiplying the cuft weight by 27 cuft/cuyd to get pounds per yard and determine what the conversion factor is yourself. This make you an educated buyer to you don't get taken advantage of. Be sure of the price unit too ($'s/ton) if they charge you per yard but they give you tons then you will over pay by by a third using the 1.5 factor i.e $6.00/yd = $4.00/ton. If you deal with gravel guys this probably will not be a problem but if you by from a second party then they sometimes try to take advantage of the unknowing. I only caution this because I had one reseller tried to pull it on me. I only been dealing with this stuff for 35 years so he lost a sale.

You can also get recycled asphalt road base but I like the concrete better it just looks cleaner. To get the straight skinny between the tow just ask the local supplier and they can explain the difference or even suggest a different size for your area if needed. They can give you a cost estimate too. If you want it shallower just take the depth you want in inches and divide it by 12 and times that to the 222 tons, i.e. an 8" depth would be 8/12*222= 148 tons.

If I sound like I'm being condescending that is not my intent it's just that some don't understand the conversion or math so I"m trying to make it as simple as possible. Cheers and Happy Easter.

Minerat

[MaryB]

When they did my short driveway they used a combination grave/clay and once packed I had to use a pick to trench the power cable over to the garage.

[Ickisrulz]

I have a concrete plant within a couple miles of me. I will stop by and get some advice from them also. I will be doing the job myself with a Kubota BX25. At least that is my plan.

[tmax64]

You can make it as complicated or simple as you want. Putting down 3-4 inches of 1 1/2" gravel then drive on it. If it disappears then get a layer of 2-3" and see if it stays put. It never hurts if there's a rut or two to fill up while putting it down so you are filling the soft spot with more gravel. Most of the time I got 1 large delivery of gravel then will get a pickup load every time it needs it to fill in ruts and it works fine.

[10x]

Remove the topsoil and build it up with clay to the original elevation. Then 2 to 4 inches of 3/4" crush on top.
You can sell the top soil. And construction company's will be glad to have a place to dump clay

[starmac]

The base is what makes or breakes a road or driveway. Fabric works, but again it depends on the base. I have worked on jobs where the engineers thought fabric was some sort of miracle cure, and even trying to bridge over the fabric with a 2 foot layer of material in one pass the fabric pumped right up through it makeing it a total mess, to deal with.
All types of soils work different, but rock on top of most topsoil will eventually push down and out. It is better to strip the topsoil down to a decent base then use good fill (even more of the clay) packed and compacted then a layer of gravel. Crusher fines makes great fill and is usually cheaper than rock by far.
Crushed concrete does make good base, but in areas where gravel is plentiful, is usually more expensive.

[w5pv]

Get the concrete company to dump their washout from the trucks on to your drive and you will have one solid drive,after it dries and mixes a few inches with the existing soil it will be there for years.Mine lasted for about 20 years until the wife decided that she wanted a concrete circle drive.

[runfiverun]

I seen lots of roads made from scoria.

out here it's lava cinders.
the cinders come in red and black but they are the same stuff.
the shape and roughness of them allows them to lock together and grind down into a finer and finer sized stone on their own as you drive over them.
this makes the driveway smoother and smoother over time and it don't go wandering off to the sides like round rock does.

anyway the scoria breaks down similarly but in square pieces.

I guess what works or what is available is a region by region thing.
I'd look around at what my neighbors have used and see how their driveways are looking.

[redriverhunter]

I live in north Texas and sounds like we have similar soil. My drive was already in place when I got my house. about 3 to 5 years ago we go a lot of rain and the drive way developed a rut about a foot deep, it was a black clay like. I feel your pain had a dump truck dump 3 to 5 inch crushed rock in. (I thought I would be able to smooth it and move with a rake and shovel not advised) We drove on that for a while and then had we had load of 1'' crusher run (i think that what its called) put on top. Yesterday I took my trailer and got a tone of the 1'' crusher to patch up the drive way seems like every year or so I get pot hole here and there I fill the the 1'' stuff and seem to work. I had a belly dump semi load delivered it was a five hundred dollar experience. I now take my trailer and got a little over a ton for 41. bucks, it took about an hour to get all out but its cheaper and i get where i want it.

[Smoke4320]

The base is what makes or breakes a road or driveway. Fabric works, but again it depends on the base. I have worked on jobs where the engineers thought fabric was some sort of miracle cure, and even trying to bridge over the fabric with a 2 foot layer of material in one pass the fabric pumped right up through it makeing it a total mess, to deal with.
All types of soils work different, but rock on top of most topsoil will eventually push down and out. It is better to strip the topsoil down to a decent base then use good fill (even more of the clay) packed and compacted then a layer of gravel. Crusher fines makes great fill and is usually cheaper than rock by far.
Crushed concrete does make good base, but in areas where gravel is plentiful, is usually more expensive.

In our area of NC we have a hard clay.
crush and run gravel makes an excellent driveway.. The fines make the base and the bigger is the finished drive.. BUT you have to start on the clay .. remove all topsoil first

[quilbilly]

Hopefully you get lucky and have a dump truck driver who is good at spreading the load. That will really ease the work.

[OBIII]

Smoke4320 called it crush and run. Here in Western Maryland it is called crusher run. It is fine pieces of gravel up to pea sized with fines (crushed rock). If you moisten a handful and squeeze, it will hold it's shape. Dig up the grass and lay down a 3-4" base of this. Sprinkle well with dry cement. Wait for rain or moisten by hand. Compact. Cheap and lasts almost as long as concrete. If you don't have one, you can rent a roller to tow behind your Kubota.
OB

[10x]

If you leave the topsoil underneath you will get potholes developing as the organic topsoil seems to compress when dry, then swell with water.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Few questions? Any water ? Wet spots? Soft spots? . Top soil if humus ( dark rich soil) has to go. Next any fill with rock will work to get close back to grade. Last 3-4's inch use a gravel of 2"-3" whatever you like, river stone, Lime stone. Mat ( fabric ) may help if you think it will not tare, split. Mat will stop soft ground from coming up though.

Fill can Be . Hard soil clay (turning to shale) and or rock, rock shale, reclaimed gravel (pipeline work) road millings, cement , what ever will be solid. Pure clay will get soft if wet.

Gravel all in what you like, look your going after.

Other things I have done. In pot holes ; old bags of cement, mortar the ones that are getting hard. Find them alone the road on trash day, auction sales . Take the cement break it up and mix up soft with gravel and maybe some sand, all in the type of mix in the bag. Spread it over the hole and cover with gravel, press down with foot. Your wanting a crack able patch not a cement slab. Slab will lift out, crack up slab like floats over the pot hole. Ever see a heavy truck on a wet spring gravel road like the truck is floating on the bed of gravel. If patch is too hard it is like it floats right out of the pot hole. We have use this to patch about 30 ' of drive over the last 20 years. Been about 4 with no holes. Use same idea at road where gravel is pushed away, from grade, pulling in and pulling out.

Mill lime gets hard as cement to. Have a small left over pile that is like steel just hard as lime stone. Was using as mix in topping off manure spreader, till it got baked hard one summer.

Ended up with 10 square of shingles that when bad, pinnacle shingles are junk by the way. We are going to use them for a mat for the old farm barn. We also have old felt and other roofing items that are going to be used as mats in the future. But these spots are not main drives and if it fails live and learn, better then just dumping in trash.

[William Yanda]

You haven't mentioned slope and moisture. I like the way you think-35 feet wide for a driveway is generous.
I heard that fabric is equivalent to 5 inches of gravel. If so, for your use, fabric plus 3 inches of crusher run, might be all you need. Sounds a lot cheaper than removing 12 inches of topsoil and building back with gravel. Although the latter solution would handle loaded semi's in a wet spring.

[starmac]

You put fabric on 12 inches of topsoil covered by 3 inches of material, you will be looking at the fabric before you get to the other end. Fabric works as intended for a specific purpose, but not used correctly it will be a nightmare.

If you don't start with a good base, concrete will not hold up.

[quilbilly]

Off subject but I just found out the quarry where we got our crushed rock from was bought by the guy on the Show "Ax Men", Gabe Rygaard and his wife. Hopefully his log truckers know how to spread gravel.

[BD]

I've built, (I should say supervised the building of, as I'm not the guy on the machinery), access roads into a fair number of projects on the east coast from sand beaches to mountain sides. 100 feet long to 3,000 feet long, down 15% grades to the lake, across flat sand, right on the beach, through bog holes, you name it.
The key to any road base is to remove the top soil down to something that can bear the load, (hard pan, dry clay, shale, rock or whatever the base material is in your area), and replace it with bearing material. Crushed shale, crushed slate, crusher run, B-minus, screenings, bank run gravel, what ever is common for road base in your area will work for bearing material. Small clean uniform stone does not make a road bed. It's a topping material, (and it holds water). If you doubt this try, driving up the next truck escape ramp you pass. Whatever base you use, you need to insure that it drains. A hillside will generally drain itself. Rolling land you ditch the sides and crown the road, if it's dead flat build perf pipe into the shoulders and lead it off into whatever ditches you can find. If the base holds water like a tub it will pretty quickly saturate the sub-base and sink. If your sub-base is anything other than rock or shale or hard pan, road fabric will pay for itself over time as without it any soluble base, (red or gray clay or any thing that will perc ), will eventually work up through the road base during wet times, while the rock in the base works down, leaving you back where you started. If you have no real sub-base below, fabric is your only hope.

Depending on your budget you can build a road that will last centuries, (as the Romans did), by going down 3 or 4 feet and starting with a layer of very course ballast rock, (think soft ball size at the minimum), followed by successive layers of smaller rock as you work up to the surface, with good drainage and plenty of rolling as you put it down. In northern Maine, where I've seen more than one excavator sink over it's tracks, the answer to the worst bottomless bog holes is two feet of course crushed slate over fabric topped with a foot of any bank run gravel. Water comes up into it, and goes down out of it, with minimal effect. This will hold very heavy traffic over the worst crappy wet clay sub-base for a long time with good fabric under it. For 3 or 4 years even if it has no drainage at all.
It really depends on where you are in the world, what your site has under it, and what material is available in your area.

[MaryB]

Here on the prairie I have had full concrete trucks back over wet lawn and only sink a couple inches. The root mass is so dense it is very hard to dig through and about 3 feet thick. When they built my garage and I asked them to take the sod off in bucket loads to put in a bare spot it didn't work, 2-3 foot deep hunks tore out... I had them set it aside and I had to use a machete to trim the sod top layer off.

[Ickisrulz]

There have certainly been lots of strategies suggested. I appreciate all the responses.

I am a pretty frugal guy and while I want it done right, I want in to be cheap.

Presently I use the barn for parking, but have to be careful to plan for rain. Usually, the ground is dry within a day or two and I can drive on it again. But I would like to be able to get a pick-up in and out when the ground is wet. Here is another possible idea: "ribbon driveway." Basically the paths for the tires are "hardened" while the remainder is left alone. This would be cheaper. I wouldn't have a "turn around" in bad weather though.

I could pretty easily cut the topsoil down to the clay and then back fill with clay and crushed rock in the tire paths. What do you think?

[Plate plinker]

probably will be okay just use large stone first 2.5 inch stone works well.

[DougGuy]

You have to have a bed regardless of what you top it with. Clay is not a bed. You want cheap just keep driving over the grass. You want it to last so that you don't keep throwing money at it every 2-3yrs then get down to your clay and lay a bed of large rip rap and then finish with #1 slag then top with crusher run -or- crushed asphalt. BD has it right.

I have been making calls this week looking for prices of stone for this driveway as well. It has a base that is 30yrs old of either crusher run or 57 stone. About the best I can do is around $17/Ton for crusher run and $80 bucks to haul 20 tons and I will have to shell out a little more to get it spread out. This will get me 4" of stone at the top of the driveway and 6" of stone down by the road where the culvert is currently exposed. Yes it's past time to reline it.

BD, would I be better off with crusher run or crushed asphalt?

[Lloyd Smale]

we call it p-gravel up here. Put down about 4 inches (compressed which started as about 6in) in my driveway and for the floor in the old pole barn that burned down. I remember putting a shallow water well pump in a pit in that barn and it took a pick ax to bust it up to be able to shovel a trench. Driveways so hard that water sits on it for half a day after a rain. All I did to install it is spread it out with the loader I borrowed and back bladed it and ran over a few times to pack it down with the loader. After about 6 months of driving on it it was as hard as concrete.
Smoke4320 called it crush and run. Here in Western Maryland it is called crusher run. It is fine pieces of gravel up to pea sized with fines (crushed rock). If you moisten a handful and squeeze, it will hold it's shape. Dig up the grass and lay down a 3-4" base of this. Sprinkle well with dry cement. Wait for rain or moisten by hand. Compact. Cheap and lasts almost as long as concrete. If you don't have one, you can rent a roller to tow behind your Kubota.
OB

[lup]

My place for near the ocean. I put down crushed oyster shells on the cheap. Worked fine and save some bucks.

[Ickisrulz]

I have called a couple places to see what type of rock is available. I was told both times people here just put down 1 1/2" crusher run on top of topsoil and it works fine. I haven't found anyone local that has anything larger.

[RogerDat]

Look into recycled concrete sized as road base.
This will save you a good chunk of money as it tends to be cheaper than crushed rock. Probably want to check it for wire or pieces of rebar with a clean up magnet. Can always cover with the finer crushed rock for looks and allow that to pack into the small spaces in the larger bedding of crushed concrete.