Our driveway has been , uh....moved recently and I'm looking for some ideas to harden the surface without actually paving it over (too expensive). Some guys in town suggested spreading cement powder or calcium and using a combination of vibration packing and water afterwords.

Does this sound like a reasonable idea?

The road is fairly steep and has a turn half way to the top. My 2wd truck has to be able to tow a trailer out without chewing up the surface. The LS rear end did a real number on the old road setup and I'm trying to figure out ways to avoid that this time around. If there is a better way I'd like to hear it. The road crush mix that we tried tends to dry out during the summer and loose cohesion allowing the tires to dig in.

The old road was more strait (but slightly steeper) so I could at least ramp up some speed to get out, but this one will not allow that with a turn half way to the top, so traction will be more of a problem now. We will also need to have 5 ton trucks come down to make deliveries for the business and want to make sure they can get back out.

 

what type of soil is it? sand, clay, silt??? just regular old black dirt?

 

The top layer is road crush. Its a mix of sand, 1/2" gravel and some clay added. Under that is just brown soil as fill. Its the top layer that tended to come loose with the old road setup.

 

if they mill roads up there before resurfacing them, the millings will pack down as hard as asphalt. put a 4 inch layer on top, and drive on it to compact it.

 

OK you got me. What does milling refer to?

 

They grind off about 4 inches of the old asphalt before putting the new mat down.

 

That is a great thing, but the millings are starting to be in high demand at te asphault plants.

They only have to use about 1/2 the tar to make new asphault if the recycle the millings.

Don't put calcium on it, when you get a bit of wet weather you will have a mudhole.

Here at the limestone plants they have black sand.
What that is is the finest rocks out of the crushing process.
Spread a couple inches of that, it will be a mess till it gets packed down.
But once it is packed and dries out, hard as concrete.

The only thing that will be a problem, on a steep hill the rock is so fine it does wash out.
So water control will be a key issue.

 

If you have a limestone quarry around you get the "trash" that collects from crushing. It will have 3's to 8's and will have allot of lime dust. It will pack hard and set up from rain. If not you can spread lime on your rock and it will set up. Not fast acting AG lime but actual lime dust. It will get hard a Wood peckers teeth.

Millins are good also but like the other guys said, they are getting hard to get around here. I work for the Road Dept and we use them allot. Used to companies would let you have them to haul them off but now they won't.

 

It would be a good idea to think through the relative elevations before you add to much depth.

I'm assuming, dangerous I know, but in BC you probably get enough seasonal rain to create some surface flow. When you add depth to roads you are going to push the water to different places. Cross slope of the road section and matching existing at each end can be a real good thing to know before you get too deep into time and materials. (Or mud)

Down here the stuff that Dave is describing would be called "Crusher Tailings", the fines that fall through the smallest screen so they can't be used for County or State paving projects because the don't pass the strength tests for Highway speeds and durability.

 

down here, the concrete plant folks clean out the cement trucks and stockpile it. you can buy it cheap and it has enough cement in it to set up hard if you wet it and drive on it. the only problem is if they put it out dry and the weather turns dry, you have a cloud of dust follow you up and down the hill. got a friend that did his steeeeeep gravel drive and it made a messy muddy drive a reasonably solid surface. BTW, he drives a heavy half ton dodge 4X4 and pulls a 16 foot trailer up and down it and hasn't torn it up yet. don't know if you can get the tailings that they clean out of the trucks or not, but it's a pretty good alternative if you can.

speedrdr

 

Rain is certainly a factor. We had minor washouts before from run off of the street. There seems to be good run off with how the road is set up now, but you never really know until the next heavy rain.

There are a few mines around here that deal in lime stone. I'll pass on the idea and see what can be done.

How much would be needed per sq/ft (or other standard)?

The driveway is about 75' long and double vehicle width.

 

Sounds like newr knows his stuff about road/driveway building for our area. Assuming that he must know how to handle rainfall/run-off, we get PLENTY of that here.

 

Although it sounds like you've already got some better suggestions...thought I might add my two cents.

Here where I work, there is a marina right next door that had a big plot of grass that they wanted to gravel over so people could drive on it without tearing it up.

My boss ordered 20 tons of "crusher run" from the local quarry. Now, I don't really know gravel sizing, but the biggest pieces are smaller than a golf ball, all the way down to the really fine stuff.

This stuff is pretty neat, you dump it straight down, drive on it a couple times, and it packs down like asphalt. It worked so good down there, we put some in front of a new building we built, and I can drive our 8000 lb forklift on it and barely put a dent on it.

However, you have to keep in mind that the stuff is still gravel. It will wash out if there's a lot of water, and you wouldn't want more than a couple inches of it, and you can still spin it up (although it's harder to do). Nice thing is though that if you do spin it up, you can just rake over that spot and it will pack right back down.

 

Is there any way to shape the first 10 feet or so of your drive in such a way to get the water from the public street off of your dive? If so, do it even if it means a wierd looking approach. Water volumes build very quickly once the soil is saturated, or frozen, and most public roadways are designed to drain with zero infiltration. This wil contribute to why you get the "Wash Out". The soils get saturated to the point that the grains are suspended in liquid, Water, so it flows down slope.

I dissagree about waiting to see where the water is going to run to, by then you have a mess to deal with untill next spring. It's actually very predictable and controllable.

Think about it this way, water runs down slope and puddles where the slope is either imepeded or changes. Ditching removes the impediments, grading improves the slope. If you need too, cut a culvert across the road to get the water to the steeper slope and AWAY from your rock. Keeping your drive dry, even in winter, is doable for the most part, but you must route the water away from the travel path.

If you put a culvert in NEVER go smaller than 8". I've seen lots of people put 5" pipe in because they think it will carry a lot of water. The problem is that you can plug a 5" with 2 Maple leaves and a twig, then your screwed.

Hope this helps.