What are the best ways to fix a steep gravel driveway that keeps forming washboard and ruts? Use recycled concrete? Mix in asphalt with fresh gravel and compact? Has anyone had any luck with those plastic grids to retain gravel? Driveway is a straight shot up a hill and homeowners have just been re-grading every year but would now like a more permanent solution (but still inexpensive, laying asphalt or concrete is out of the question) I’m going to check it out today and can get pics and slope measurements.
Im not a dirt guy but i know on steep logging roads as soon as the weekenders in 2 wheel drives hit the steep spots you get washboard and marbles . 4 wheel drive and some driver education will help. They cant always just put thier foot into it and power up. Dirt guys in here will give you some ideas on material and compaction.
Well, it’s not that steep.. 12degrees at the steepest. Obviously trench out either side to divert runoff and crown. Still just wondering what material would pack in and hold up best. Also, not sure why the site is flipping my photos sideways. Sorry
Nothing like a old sedan with long rear leaf springs and some hard throttle to get the wheel hop going, works every time.
Typically around here the problem isn’t the owners, it’s all the damn delivery trucks, Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and the USPS. They absolutely FLY in and out of driveways, it will washboard in no time from that. There’s no real way to stop it. You may be able to add a tacifyer to the road base material that tightens it up. Golf courses use it to hold the sand on the slopes in the bunkers. I’ve never used it but have heard of it being used. I’m told it forms a hard layer on the first couple of inches of the roadbase.
Recycled asphalt is probably the closest you'll get, short of concrete or new asphalt. If you put down the recycled asphalt on a hot sunny day and compact the heck out of it with a vibrating roller it'll hold up pretty well. Second best would be asphalt mixed with gravel. Compacting when the moisture content is correct goes a long way regardless of what material you use.
And yes, definitely get some good ditches dug so the water has somewhere to go other than straight down the driveway
that mud there on the right is from no drainage and the rock just goes away. I personally see this as a spot for fabric plus the crown for drainage, bigger stuff and a finish course over that. From the looks of it they do not have much rock there yet. Let them drive on the bigger stuff to compact, then add the recycle as a top course and shape it right.
The picture shows a soft spot with not enough gravel. A base of coarser rock up to 3" or so packed, then a surface on that will hold better, but they might want to get away cheaper. The steeper the grade the less it needs deep ditches, but it's hard to tell how steep that is. 12 degrees is 21%, it doesn't look anywhere near that steep. That doesn't even look 12%, I can't tell if I'm looking uphill or downhill. A lot more rock, and grading that 3-4 times a year would help. One time cutting and reshaping the crown, and a couple times with a angled drag to keep the washboard down. I see the washed out rut in the middle, that needs to be crowned, and the ditches kept low enough that the water doesn't wash out the secondary ditch, the side of the road where the grass builds up. You could add cross bars, dips that divert the water, but that would be a pain to drive, and shouldn't be needed.
Good point skyking, if there's not a good base in won't hold shape for very long. 673 moto, does it freeze there?
Need a small ditch to drain so water dosnt flow over to start . Disk it up repack maybe some lime soil stabilization, then lay some geo mat down and some fresh gravel
This should help https://kerrcenter.com/using-old-conveyor-belts-to-prevent-erosion-on-gravel-ranch-roads/
IMO first and foremost the drive needs a proper crown and side swales to drain the water away from road. The drive might need a cross pipe or two. Water mis-managemnt is the biggest foe of gravel roads. That needs to be done first in order to dry the sub-grade out then a wear surface can be installed. What kind of crushed stone, crushed concrete or asphalt millings do you have available locally?
Its going to require money to fix that road. It needs elevation, ditches, and crown. Anytime the road surface is lower than surrounding grade it requires a tremendous amount of time and effort to keep the road passable. Depending on the layout we can't see you maybe able to pull enough dirt while grading ditches to build the roadbed sufficiently high. But this is a dry weather project. They can buy rock short term, but trying to do work during the rainy season will be a very expensive lesson in futility.
^ all that. Road in hole is a misery pit. fixing it with native is dry weather work. if I had to fix it today I'd have a drainage plan, ditch and pipe, roll out fabric and run some big rock over it. all that is a big bill.
Thanks all! Definitely waiting for dryer season, no rush. It does freeze here but not a deep freeze... usually just freezing temps overnight. Slope is indeed 12 degrees... only at the last 100’ or so. I know there is both recycled asphalt and concrete available but not sure on grade or condition. The only geo-grid I’m familiar with is for retaining walls... what other products are there for stabilization?
2" - 3" crushed rock for base about 6 inches to a foot followed by some crushed 1" or 3/4" +/- on top to smooth it out. I have twice as steep drive way at around 24 to 30 degrees and mine has held up in this clay and torrential downpours without geo-grid, though is advisable for it.
If you go with recycled concrete inspect it very carefully for small pieces off reinforcing wire in it before buying it. I spread many thousands of yards of it for highway subgrade. In one week the semi's hauling it had 21 flat tires.
Here, calcium carbonate in 1-3/4" drainage stone is my base. Lay it as deep as the budget allows. You want crown, 6" higher at center is best. I want a 15' wide travelled portion. A 2" thick layer of 3/4" stone will fill the voids in the 1-3/4 & seal for a layer of grinding from repaving. Water is your worst enemy. Knotheads in two wheel drive are second worst. Use 4 wheel drive & keep two tires in center of the road. Don't always drive on the right. Washboards are worst when drivers power up in the same wheel tracks. A number of years ago Mount Washington auto road was 15? miles long & steep as a calf's face. They had all day traffic & roads were perfect. They had a drag made of dozens of push broom heads. It kept the washboards out without tearing up compaction.
I've helped to build a ton of roads, put down the fresh gravel and get a very heavy truck to push it down, then treat it with water and drive over it some more, repeat till happy. Don't put so much water on it that your spinning tires or sinking, just a little coat. The non water stuff in the water makes the gravel hold together.
Here is a better view.
You need some ditches to the sides, the water is making them for you. Widen the road to the right side of the pic and add a ditch, the ditch to the left is already made
There lies the problem.... do it right, but do it cheap. To me, the road is lower than the fence line, so it needs to be built up, and if not crowned, sloped to the right. In my experience, geotec fabric is a waste of money unless you put a good lift of material over top of it. I know nothing of grid material, other than tearing it up with the grader trying to grade woods roads.. Not sure about there, but here RAP is $40 bucks a ton, and that mud will still come through it if you can't get rid of it. If it was here, I would see if they would be interested in doing it in stages, depending on their budget. One year, use sandstone, or whatever you have there for clean fill and build up the road base higher than it is in order to get rid of the mud, then next year, or later in the season, top it off with whatever. I find RAP is great, but if it gets rough, it can't be reshaped, and if it's not screened or crushed, the big pieces will move and cause future potholes. Just remember that the better the job you do on the sub grade, the less material you need for the top coat to fill in the dips.
Remember, all we have to go on is one picture. We see mud, but if that's a one in a hundred year rain event, and that area is normally dry, then you may not need as much sub base, or as big of ditches as the rest of us are used to using, in places where the frost goes 6' on bare roads and the sub base pumps with traffic when the frost comes out. It has to be sloped to one side, or crowned to get the water off. And the grass has to be cut lower than the surface so the water runs into the ditch instead of washing the edge of the gravel. But if the water and mud is rare, you may be fine with relatively little new crushed rock. I'd still consider regrading the steep portion, that grade will always be an issue with washboarding, maybe even worse in dry conditions.
Forgot to add that not pictured is the ATT fiber cable all the way up the right side “ditch”... that I found literally laying on the surface of the ditch towards the top! So ditching the right side might be out of the question
If that’s the case, do a couple of dump and runs with 1 1/2 gravel, get a good crown and a run of 3/4 mini pack.
I watched the local TV cable provider extender their fiber optic service line about a mile in length near me. They had plenty of room on the shoulder of for it. All of it except for the junction boxes were put in the ditch. It makes no sense to me why they do that. If that cable is exposed by that road, a phone call to the cable owner may get them to relocate it so you could cut a ditch.
That fiber cable is not long for this world if it isn't buried deeper. Most phone companies will willingly at their expense go deeper with a ditch witch or plow. That's a good place for it but much deeper. Alternative is build the roadbed taller to allow drainage. I had one of those roads though a shorter section. It was always wet & tended to rut with traffic. One side of the road I don't own the land. I raised the roadbed about 2' to give it some crown & ditch. now it's a good road even in wet weather.
Everything mentioned here is good advice. Ditches, slope or crown the road, build the road up, etc. The only thing I can add to the conversation that hasn't been mentioned already is ditches do require maintenance. In the fall, leaves wind up in the ditches and clog the flow and the water ends back up on road or makes a secondary ditch. We have several areas just like this on our ranch. Several times a year, we get out the backpack blowers and clean out the ditches. A big backpack blower will clean them right out.
I have one section of road, turns off from the road to National Forest to rise up to the upper meadow. It's uphill, probably an 8% grade. It has always been wet. Years ago, I dug out the ditches DEEP! I piled the material dug from each side in the middle. The whole excavation is probably 60 feet wide with a road 5' higher than the ditch bottom. I worried the sandy material wouldn't make much of a road base, but it has held very well. I put about two feet of "tailings", (The rock discarded when they screen winter road sand) & topped it with smaller screen tailings, they describe as 3/4 minus. Those ditches run water every day of the year. Usually, it's a lazy stream a foot wide, 1" deep, but in heavy rain or snow melt, it runs faster. I put stumps in the bottom. Gentle water flows through the root mass, but it partially obstructs heavier flow, creating a series of little pools. This prevents erosion.
I agree with whats been posted already, I'll just add my $0.02 on what works for me. The driveway like the OP is dealing with is something I run into a lot, often I'm called in to fix "driveways" that new home builders put in which basically consist of a couple inches of #57 gravel sprinkled on mud, no drainage, compaction, base rock etc. I agree this is dry weather work, it can be done in the wet season but it's going to take a lot more rock. Basically what I do is just ignore everything that's there and start over as if it's a new driveway. It's usually such a mess saving the existing gravel is a lost cause. Strip any vegetative material, shape the road bed with a crown and ditches and compact. Depending on the terrain I'll put down anywhere from 4-12" of #3 or #357 (a little smaller than your fist) and top it with crusher run. I never use fabric unless it's an absolute swamp. Steep and/or firm ground gets the least base rock, low and wet get the most, same with the crusher run. Really wet ground will get a base of ESC rock which is about 4-6" size. On steep hills you want enough base rock to hold the load and no more, crusher run only enough to lock in the base rock. Never top with clean rock on steep hills, always crusher run. It has to be able to lock into the base, be compacted and form a cohesive mat.
John David Rockefeller Jr. owned property in several states. He was a big fan of carriage roads with large teams of horses pulling big wagons. One of his homes was on Mount Desert Island in Maine. He had hundreds of miles of scenic carriage roads built. He of course had engineers. His system began with drainage. A road was shaped to the engineer's liking with cuts or fills as needed to gain functional grade. Where a fill was on side hill, excavation to a level in terms of perpendicular to the road happened first to prevent fill material sliding. Any ground not to be changed was stripped of any organic soil. Drainage was installed where needed. Roadbed was prepared with a specific crown, & ditches were a specific depth & width with 6" rock lining their bottom. The travelled road surface of specified width & crown was of 6" rock a specified depth & crown. That was topped with 2" rock, Final layer was 6" of crushed gravel 3/4-. Those roads have lasted long after their builder died. Maintenance, it appears is spot repair if a major storm washes out a spot, but that seems rare. They use a drag shaped with the correct crown to keep surface smooth. In another time, when Federal roads were being built, another engineer named Macadam had a quicker system. He removed organic soil & laid a 10" thick layer of 1 X 1 X 2 crushed stone. Iron horse shoes & iron wagon tires are said to cause the elongated rock to wedge together.