rural road maintenace

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

The road leading to our home is 20' wide and 520' long, the soil is a mixture of clay and sand. When this is dried it is pretty hard and we don't have problem driving on it, we have had heavy equipment in and it has rained almost every day and it is now soft and slippery. I am looking for something that doesn't cost too much to put down to cover the road. The road will be raised about 1' and graded once we are done with the equipment use.

-- Ron Hodge (cabergh@alltel.net), July 25, 2001

Answers

when I help logging friends,,, we ALWAYS use, old hay,, even on clay roads,, it works great, plenty of traction and it decomposes after use.

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), July 25, 2001.

1 1/2" minus, topped after a season or two with 3/4" minus.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 25, 2001.


ron: on my place in far northern california my driveway from the county road is l500' and it too is hard as rock during the dry season but, during the wet months turns to mush. i graded and compacted the entire length and laid down 6" of 3/4" aggregate base that i wet down and compacted as well. i've done the hay/straw thing & it's fine for a while but, as they posted it decomposes. (rock doesn't) a rural road or driveway is a work in progress, you have to keep at it to make it work. lol bob m.

-- bob mccaffrey (bobmccaffrey1@netscape.net), July 25, 2001.

I know a guy who used a substance called "fly ash". He got it at the local cement mixing plant. It is suppose to be the residual left from burned coal, from generator plants. It packs down real hard. I don't know how long it last tho. But I do know that they use it alot in foundation fill in before cement is poured.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), July 25, 2001.

If you are raising the road surface, you want to lay down some material that will provide a good base foundation. I would discourage using organic material. It may be fine on the surface for traction, but makes a terrible base. A cheap base material is recycled concrete chunks. I got a ten ton load for $60 two years ago to build up a ramp from my pasture to the shared driveway. I would think it would be at least half the cost of crushed rock. The stuff I got averaged 5"-6" chunks. Put a layer of that down on your mush and the heavy equipment will work it in. Similar to using what are called "quarry spalls".

-- Skip in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), July 25, 2001.


Hey, Skip, thanks for the new lingo...."quarry spalls".....I like the sound of that.

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@wildmail.com), July 25, 2001.

We had similiar conditions when we lived in VA. boy do i ever miss red mud... NOT! but one thing we were told to help was to go to the highway department and ask for the old paving they take up when re- doing a hard top and put that down. There is also a gravel you can use too, forgot the kind.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 26, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ