I was wondering the best way to fix this part of my driveway. It got flooded and I had no choice but drive through it to get to my shop. I'm going to get some screenings from the gravel pit but I need to smooth it out first. I'm thinking it's best to let it completely dry out then smooth it out and pack it before adding the screenings. Is that the best way or is there a way to scrape it around so it dries out faster? It's a mix of clay and gravel screenings.
Here's a pic.
Mix some dry material in & build it up so you have a crown the water doesn't pool & runs off to the sides before you rock it
Are you talking about actual rounded gravel, or crushed stone. Gravel almost never works well for roads, as it is rounded. It will not lock together and tires eventually roll it out to the edges or into the middle of the road.
In my opinion you need some 1 1/2” crushed to tighten it up and raise it
I may try some >3" on top and roll it down into the muck, then top dress it with #57
Sooo.......just curious. You trying to do this yourself with a pickup to move material?? Or do you have access to a dump truck?? The clay crap gives poor drainage and you might have that pic in a gully or low point, no drainage. Based on the pic, I think I'd scoop out some of that muck with loader/backhoe, excavator and put down a layer of 3" +/- as a base like Ianjoub suggested........then use your 1/2 or 3/4" on top. Any source for reclaimed asphalt?? If your just doing loads with a pickup, the 3" isn't going to be shovel friendly. Dump truck definitely!! I don't know what you have for resources equipment wise.
Strip it 8" down and build up with crushed/screened gravel. Top dress it with washed stone as desired.
I can't see grade in the picture. Until you have a raised roadbed with drainage on both sides you are urinating into the wind. Use the ditch area to get the fill to build up the roadbed. Install culverts as necessary to get the water from one side to the other. Build the road surface with grade so the water runs into the ditch. Then you can start pouring on the rock. And the rock will actually stick around.
I need to build it up and pretty sure I can get material from a really close gravel pit that has supported my MX track and brought gravel and other material in the past. I don't know how it would work trying to mix the muddy mess with new material.
Nobody mentioned any fabric, any spot that is that squishy and prone to flooding will swallow any fill that you use unless steps are taken to prevent it from driving into the mud. IMO.
Soupy material scrape off just trying to keep moisture for compaction. What kind of equipment do you have Dave? Railroad ballast/1.5" rock locks up nice & doesn't get stuck in the tires
Don't even think about millings until you get a base established. I laid out 20k yds of millings last summer. Most was on well-graded and established gravel and is fine. Anywhere we laid it that didn't have a good base is a mush hole.
A grader operator who was out last year said a crown would help and hold the water off the driveway. I like the idea of putting some larger size gravel as a base. I have a track loader with a backhoe as well as a grader and a skid steer so digging it up isn't a problem. I think digging it up and mixing it all together so it can be reused is the best way to recycle it but using some larger rocks in the base would be the best and then add some screenings on the top. The screenings come off a crusher so are jagged and differ in size with a lot of coarse sand. I have some on the rest of the driveway. There was some larger sharp rocks that were a little hard on the bottom of the teeth on my skid steer bucket. I didn't want to damage my smooth edge bucket. Maybe should have used the track loader to dpread it?? It took a while to pack in and holds water in a couple spots but stays firm without making ruts. I'll see what I can get. The last load they donated came on an almost new very expensive side dump train. Not sure if it's a B train or C train etc. but was a pretty big load. They only need to drive about 5 miles so overload the trucks when they bring me gravel. I had to hand shovel the last little bit out. I think because it was pretty damp and sticky. They have been really good to me and fully support my track. They even special screened some 3/4" washed rock for the poles for my pole shed. They said my track is good for the community and they are happy to support it. I am very grateful to them. I'd guess they've supplied over $4000 worth of gravel and screenings over the years.
You need to get that muck out of there before pushing anything other than 3-5" rock in. Anything less will just be a mattress until July.......IF it stops raining. BTDT, that watery muck is impossible to do anything with. IT WON'T.
depending on the contractor or truck broker you may end up with 30-year-old 5-in rip rap from parking lot, rubberized asphalt or get lucky and it's fresh road grindings and then you got to worry about the county and the water table and what they have to say about it on your property
There is quite a bit of gravel in the muddy mess. It dries pretty hard. Maybe I could put it aside and let it dry out and then mix it a little with the screenings to get that area built up higher. I think it would be a good idea to put a drainage pipe in and then build the area up a foot or so. I don't really care if water sits beside the driveway but a drainage pipe would prevent it from potentially flooding driveway if there was a lot of rain. The guys from the gravel pit would have some good idea's too on how to fix it. I did build up the pad for the pole shed and it's not affected by rain. The water off the roof drains to a pond behind it that I use for watering the oval track and MX track if necessary.
Does anybody have experience using lime to dry up a muddy driveway?
What shimmy said...........you need to get the muck out. Like building a house on a crumbling foundation. Get down down to some good virgin material, then build up w/ the 3" +/-. Yeah........it's alot of work. But that's what needs to be done. Put your 3" down as a base layer and go from there. I think it's great you've got some great support for your track!!
We can that combination a B double side tipper.
Dry, or slurry lime is used extensively throughout areas of Texas. It is amazing to see the muddy messes they dump lime in, and how good it looks after compaction. It's main use is to calm down the expansive clays. I be you could google "lime use on roads", and get a lot of info. They also use bulk dry cement to do the same thing in some cases. It does seem to take a lot though, and handling bags of lime might not be practical, unless you have a source for bulk.
I ran a dozer to mix fly ash that was obtained form local generating stations. It was left to cure a minimum of 7 days after compacting it. One of the jobs it was used was on was a NASCAR race track sub-grade. The engineering firm overseeing the operation made sure I went a minimum of two feet deep.
If you put new material in a mud hole you just make more mud. Clean the mud hole out, let the material you dig out dry, let the hole dry, put the pipe under the road, put the dry material back in the dry hole, add new material to finish filling the hole, cut your ditches to move the water, spread whatever you can get on top for traction. Wait for the next big rain and then you can do it again. The more you do it the easier it gets.
On a dry day, excavate out the muck and dirt about 12" down and a bit wider than than the road and get rid of it. Lay down heavy permeable fabric. Install angular rock either 2-4" or 4-8" long quarry spalls 6-7" deep. Bigger rock is better such as what you might see on a construction site entrance. You can also use broken concrete. Don't use anything round or organic. Then lay more permeable fabric on top. Install 4-6" 1 1/4 minus or 5/8" minus on top and compact. Back fill dry dirt/sod around the edges for road width and direction. Basically you're driving over a french drain.
Either take the mud out, or keep adding rock until there isn't any mud left. Big rock.
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Thanks for all the replies. I'll see if the gravel pit has some bigger crushed rock. I have a bunch of rock I picked off the oval track but it's mostly round rocks. If I put geotextile down, should I put it down on the dry base or after putting bigger rock down? I only want to put it down once but maybe it isn't necessary if I get some bigger rock down? The reason it got so bad is because I used the grader to level off the initial ruts but didn't pack it in. I was planning to go out the next day and finish it but got hit with an unexpected rain shower that basically turned it into a thick soup. The rain has been pretty frequent since then. It's weird that the edge where the mess starts the driveway is very firm. It's like a bump you have to climb up or a ledge you drive off. It was drying pretty good but got a bunch more rain yesterday.
My partners father in law used to haul fly ash for years for a large trucking firm. I don't know how you could get a small load. I was reading it can be used in addition to lime. I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask him although he can be pretty grouchy at times.
You can't just add rock and call it a day. You likely have water pooling in the area from water run off from the roof of the out building and the other side of the road. Examine closely the slopes around. If it's all level, it could be just a soft area and with heavy vehicles that are leaving ruts, then heavy rain fills the ruts. But you still have a drainage issue. You can do exactly what I posted above but in the middle lower area excavate a trench up to two feet deep and two feet wide with perforated pipe with permeable cloth and rock. Then run the trench ideally with slight slope away from the road area out to open with solid pipe, or install a dispersion drain. This would be a large excavated hole with permeable cloth and drain rock. Cover with dirt and sod. Drain should be something like 12-16' long, 6' wide, and up to 4' deep.
The area is basically flat and a little low. No water comes from off the roof of the building. I think building the area about a foot higher will make a huge improvement.
55G of Speedi dri!! LOL Honestly, don't even waste your time with lime.........hard telling how the water is migrating into your hole. You'd probably just end up with limey mud hole. I have no experience with it.........just thinking out loud. Experience mucking out a roadbed trying to get down to good material.......yes.
Try leveling it up with your skid steer (back drag) I'm lead to believe that all of Alberta is clay. Never been there, but they tell me they build highways on it. Don't waste your money with cloth. You need a good lift over it to be effective. Arbec forest products use our 3 inch minus to stiffen their wood yard up, but there is good shale rock under it. I'm guessing you have no ditches near by to drain to. I like asphalt reject, hot out of the plant. basicly asphalt with no liquid in it. It's been through the burner, so it's super dry, and works almost like floor dry. Kind of a temp fix. I'm in agreement that you need ditches, and you need to build the road up. When it dries up, bring your grader over and ditch it, and use the material you haul up to build your road up, then get Cat140M to bring his tow behind wheel roller from South Dakota
Apparently lime is commonly used for drying up and stabilizing wet roads. I was hoping to hear from someone with experience using it rather than someone who has no experience using it. The water is from a lot of rain sitting on the driveway. I need to build the area up for sure and see if it's possible to put a small drain pipe under the roadway. The lime might allow me to reuse some of the old gravely surface.
I talked to a place that specializes in geotextiles. They said non-woven is what I need as it allows full drainage but also acts to prevent the rocks and gravel from continuing to sink into the ground over time. I used the coarse screenings and it really helped but did sink into the ground over a couple years. Water pools on top but it is firm underneath. I think fabric under the big problem area I have would be a big help to prevent it from sinking over a few years. I'll have to measure but I think I'd only need about $300 worth of the geotextile to to make a 29' wide mat in the problem area. I'd like to do as permanent a fix as possible.
We get PermeaTex 4045 / R042 4.5oz Non-Woven 7.5' wide in a 36' long roll that we use for access roads and gravel parking areas. See the image above for the geotextile. Get geotextile wider than 6' and overlap. Building the road up is usually done in a flood zone. The problem here is if you compact the raised area or just drive heavy vehicles over it, you're just going to push it down and out. Soon you may have ruts or with no geotextile possibly mud too. You cannot compact over wet clay or mush. If you do build it up, then you need to add fill dirt or rock edging or something to stop the gravel from moving out wider than the width of the road. That is why I suggest keeping the gravel in a dug out pocket with drainage underneath. Trying to raise it up with side ditches and crowns is like making a major road. This looks like just a simple access road with one bad section.
The place I talked to sells the commercial grade geotextile. I got a price of $4/ft. for 15ft. wide 5oz. or 6oz. non-woven. I think they might have a lower grade too. There will be a trench once I dig the slop out to get down to a solid base. I was thinking a few bags of lime would let me reuse some of the more gravel based material. I have a pile of rocks that I could put down on the geotextile. They are mostly rounded but with the geotextile will still work as a good first layer.
I haven't got ahold of the gravel pit yet to see what they have. I'm thinking of digging it down about a foot to a good firm base, then putting some non-woven geotextile down. Next would be a thin layer of packed clay/gravel just to prevent damaging the geotextile. Then throw in some of the bigger rocks I have. With the geotextile they shouldn't sink into the ground. I could put some of the clay/gravel in to bind the rocks. I would mix it up first so it's finer and crumbly to fill the voids. Then I was thinking of mixing some hydrated lime with the clay/gravel mix to firm it up for the top coat and adding some good gravel on top of that. It still depends on what I can get from the gravel pit. I'd put everything in in light lifts and pack it with the track loader with the backhoe and the grader. The backhoe is very heavy on the back of the track loader and packs really good without making ripples and the grader is heavy with the ripper on the back. I could load the dump truck too to really pack it. I need to see if I can put a drain line under it or just fix the one side that water ponds beside it. I could build it up so any water would pool further away from the driveway and make a small trench to drain away the excess water. I don't want to spend too much on it but would like to fix it once and for all. I also read that fly ash is linked to cancer and other health risks.
I don't know about the lime stuff. Yes, excavate down to dry ground about 12-15" deep and a bit wider than your road. Smooth out a bit and remove any loose rocks. I like to run my excavator or track loader over the area with the rubber tracks to compact and flatten. Then lay the geotextile. The 5oz x15' wide will work. Don't put in any Round rock if possible as this will move around . You want the angular rock to lock in together, yet you want the space in between the rocks to be able to let water pass through. Larger angular rock is best, but not bigger than half-man size rockery. I like rock 4-8" long and this is the spec for construction entrances. You need to get about 6-12" deep of that rock then drive over it with the rubber track machine (no wheels) and compress it down flat. Then Cover it with more geotextile. Don't fill the cracks in with lime, clay, gravel etc. This rock layer allows water to flow under the road keeping the road dry and firm, but the water can disperse down into the ground (french drain). You likely don't need to run any pipes. Then do a final layer of compactable gravel -gravel with minus fines. Nothing round. Should be 4-6" thick. No need to crown, but ok or good to have slight slope off to the side following the field grade. Compact with small asphalt vibrator roller (3-4' wide roller), walk behind roller, or plate compactor. To do on the cheap - old bricks and broken up concrete rubble (no rebar sticking out) can be used. But nothing round for road base.
I think building it up and/or having a crown to keep water off would be the best. Then the ground underneath doesn't have to absorb all the water and potentially get soft where it starts sinking.
I would shave off a good clip of dirt from one side and make a low area so that the water will move off the drive and pool off the to side of it. Then back drag the mud so that the water comes to the top and use a shovel to get it to flow off the drive to the low area. Give it a few days, as the area dry's up build it up with more dry material, if you have any wet material move it off and let it dry somewhere else. Once you have a low area the water, will go that way if you slope the drive area with the new material. That area is fixable with zero rock or other cost needed. You just need dry compatible fill. Rock and base is needed if you need access during wet weather. But even rock will disappear into the ground if you are transversing the area when it is pouring. Miles and miles of dirt roads get rutted up during wet weather. They blade the ruts back out when it is dry enough to do it.
That's basically what I did. I went out today and of course it received more rain. Just a mess. After much humming and hawing I decided I should at least try to back blade it to smooth it out and see what it's like. Scraped a lot of slop off and then realized there's kind of a natural swale beside where the dump truck is parked. It goes to the pond behind the shop. It was soft but I managed to get a shallow trench dug with the backhoe. Part of the trench was formed by the track of the Cat. Drained most of the water. After that I kept back blading the slop off. Supposed to be dry weather for the next 4 days at least. Thinking I can do more with it once it dries for a couple days. I used the skid steer to push the slop off to the side. I'm thinking I should dig a trench and put a drain hose across the driveway so the driveway doesn't flood? Also thinking about getting some lime to firm up the wet clay. The base is pretty solid once all the slop is removed. It wasn't bad when I drove over it to come home. I think the grader would pack it really good. Maybe putting the geotextile on it after it's packed and then putting some kind of gravel on top would make it hold up the best? I don't know if building it up with clay and super packing it would be good until I can get some gravel? Here's some pics. The slop is like really wet cement and will probably dry just about as hard. It has a bunch of gravel in it. Maybe just building it up will be enough if I put some drain pipe in? Sometimes I need to drive on it when it's wet.
Looking at all that slop, while it may dry hard, I think you’re just going to be mucking around till you take it all out, grade it flat and throw some grass seed on it. Then build a road. I don’t see a driveway.
Oh my, what a mess! Sorry for your pain. Back tracking a bit, some questions 1. Does this get this bad every year, or is this something that's by far the worst you've ever seen? 2. How fancy a permanent fix are you looking to do? 3. How wide a road do you really want, and do you want it to be gravel? 4. You clearly have a big drainage problem to address. Anyway, can you draw out a map of your area. This would include where the outbuilding is, the trailers are, where the road goes, it's flooded areas, where the high ground is, and a measurement (ideally with wheel measure) the flooded areas length. With that info, we can all figure out sloping, drainage ideas, and road design ideas. If it was me, I would build a French drain/curtain drain along the high side of the road, parallel to the road, maybe about 8-10' feet away up slope to catch the water heading towards the road. Excavate the trench 1-2' wide, up to 2' deep and as long as you need it. If you want, you can leave this open for awhile. What you want to notice is how well it's draining, and even it's dry out, if water is leaching from the sides into it. You could leave it open, but then you're catching rain water. We just mostly want the water that has soaked into the grass, has leached down to the hard clay, and then is gravitating down the slope to your road. You may also not want an open trench near your buildings etc. So to do the french drain, you line the trench with your permeable cloth, install a 4-6" dia. perforated pipe on the bottom, and fill with drain rock (1.5" length, round or angular), with no fines in it. Fill to 4" below grade, cover with the geotextile, and put the dirt/soil back on top. For a drain exit, I would pipe with solid pipe under the road to the low area and out to open to a few feet deep open long trench or retention pond type whatever you want. I would still advise to let the area dry out super well before road building. This may take a month. Then excavate down the road path and install the geotextile, then raise back up with big angular rock and gravel etc, and yes do go a few inches above grade with slight slope off to one side or crown. For a 100 ' long road section repair aggregate material example: 100' french drain along the side of the road using 1.5" long rock (no fines) - 12yards 100' road base 4-8" long angular rock (12' wide road/5" deep) 18 yds or so on top of geotextile. 100' gravel road 1 1/4 minus (12' wide road 4-5" deep) 18yds or so on top of the 4-8" rock compacted.
Sorry for got the images
It dried up a lot in 2 days of high winds. The soup was dry enough on top to walk on but very wet in the middle. I think the lime will work to firm it up if I spread it back on the driveway in shallow lifts. It's similar consistency to what I've seen lime used on. It dries as hard as rock on its own. I made a rough ditch to drain most of the water after carefully looking at the area. The dump truck was kind of blocking a clear view. Once everything is fully dried out I'll make a nice swale on that side. I can do something similar on the other side so water runs away from the driveway. This year is by far the worst it has been. The area's beside the driveway were never properly shaped. The area on the opposite side of the dump truck has a depression that fills with water and overflows on the driveway. I will fill that in and slope the grade behind it so water won't pool. The driveway was never much of a problem. It's really weird this year. We had very little snow but the roads had the worst softening in the almost 20 years I've owned the property. Someone suggested it's because of underground streams. I don't know but about a 1/4 mile section of the main road you hope nobodies coming the other way. You have to slow down to about 35 MPH or less to navigate it. It's kind of like severe washboard in sand. Below is after 2 days drying in windy conditions. However it rained again today. I think most water will drain in the trench I made. There is a bit of a low spot so it won't all drain.
So complicated . . .
As much as I'd like to fix it like it's a highly traveled roadway I can't afford to spend thousands of dollars to fix it. It has never been this bad before nor have the main roads. It's very strange because there wasn't a lot of snow. I've put larger rocks and screenings down on other soft spots and it's good for a few years but sinks into the ground over time. That's OK because it is still firm and doesn't rut up even when under water. I don't want this area to sink in over time. I can probably get a load maybe 2 of donated or very cheap screenings. If I had to buy the proper large crushed rock for a base and smaller cover material would likely cost $1500 or more. Then add $500 or more for commercial geotextile. For under $600 I'm going to try the lime. It certainly won't make it worse. If it firms the clay up then there isn't a big rush to get some gravel. When you're on a limited budget and getting material donated you can't be too demanding. Gravel is very expensive in Alberta. I was hoping someone on the forum had experience using lime to stabilize and/or dry out wet material but there doesn't appear to be many members that have. It looks promising and isn't too expensive to try.
I need to do my driveway soon. It gets so bad in the spring I've needed the excavator or track loader to unstuck my truck. Come summer if it's warm, it's nearly rock hard though.
Mine is similar. The wet soup that didn't get put in the pile dried hard as rock. It rained quite a bit today so I don't know what it's like now. Hopefully most of the water ran down my makeshift trench.