Driveway suggestions

[BamaSpek]

I need to install a culvert from the road and a driveway up to the house site. The drive rises and will be on the north side of the property with a slope upward and then 90 to the house site. I have some pics but am not sure if they are good enough for someone to give me ideas. here are my questions..

Can I leave the drive topsoil,,,etc just cut trees level with the ground...there are only a few and I could potentially go around them. That leads to the second question...should it go straight form the street or curve to about being washed out. I will try and post better pics but this one show the northern property boundry stated out and is from the vantage point of on the hill looking at the road where the culvert will be placed.

Expense is a pretty big factor, but I want to to be big enough to get a large equiptment through, up. The culvert will be 40' long.

[BamaSpek]

Tried a larger pic. Did not work.

[Ken in Maine]

Unless you want to sponsor mud races in your driveway you need to remove the topsoil and bring in a couple feet of good gravel and then a finish gravel on top. This will allow all water to drain off the driveway. Trust me if you don't have a good base for the driveway you will spend way more in time and frustration.

[BamaSpek]

Originally Posted by Ken in Maine

Unless you want to sponsor mud races in your driveway you need to remove the topsoil and bring in a couple feet of good gravel and then a finish gravel on top. This will allow all water to drain off the driveway. Trust me if you don't have a good base for the driveway you will spend way more in time and frustration.

I have read that is the way to do it.......IThe drive will be 1000 ft long and Im thinking that is going to be pretty expensive. Most of the people around here have dirt drives like the one in the pic below. Mine might be a bit steeper than some...



This is the drive on one of the properties I was going to buy.

[Bearfootfarm]

If the soil is sandy, you may be able to get by with just putting gravel or marl on top.
Put a crown on the drive and ditches on the sides to prevent erosion.

No matter what you do it wont be cheap, but it's cheaper to do it RIGHT one time than to have to REdo it.

[Alice In TX/MO]

You also need to contact the county and/or the drainage commission or whatever you have there. There are rules about culverts. I got severely crossways with our drainage commission on a culvert installation.

[Ken in Maine]

Up here in Maine you can figure about $10.00 per linear foot for a good driveway. I'm sure the price will vary depending on your particular economic climate. If this is going to be you primary driveway it's well worth the money to do it right the first time because it will be way more expensive to re-do it later.

There is nothing more aggrivating than to have your vehicle or worse yet a visitors vehicle stuck in the mud.

[Chuck R.]

I put in about a 1100 ft road this fall using heavy rock and then smaller on top.

It was 15 loads (16 tons per) at an average of $300 per load for a total of $4500. We used a tracked loader to scrap away the top soil. The trucking company spread some of the gravel as they dumped and we spread the rest with the loader.

Luckily our quarry isn't too far away so the trucking costs are minimal. generally around here gravel/rock is around $8-9 a ton. It's getting it where you want it that costs.

We had a pipe put in by the county. Here you have to pay an "access" fee to tie into a county road with a bond. They then send out an inspector to determine if a pipe is needed. If you do it all yourself, you get the bond back, or they'll install the pipe for the $100 bond. We paid a little over $200 for the 20" pipe.

The loader was a little over $1200 for the week and went through about 10 gallons of diesel a day.

Chuck

[BamaSpek]

Originally Posted by Chuck R.

I put in about a 1100 ft road this fall using heavy rock and then smaller on top.

It was 15 loads (16 tons per) at an average of $300 per load for a total of $4500. We used a tracked loader to scrap away the top soil. The trucking company spread some of the gravel as they dumped and we spread the rest with the loader.

Luckily our quarry isn't too far away so the trucking costs are minimal. generally around here gravel/rock is around $8-9 a ton. It's getting it where you want it that costs.

We had a pipe put in by the county. Here you have to pay an "access" fee to tie into a county road with a bond. They then send out an inspector to determine if a pipe is needed. If you do it all yourself, you get the bond back, or they'll install the pipe for the $100 bond. We paid a little over $200 for the 20" pipe.

The loader was a little over $1200 for the week and went through about 10 gallons of diesel a day.

Chuck

so what was the total cost of a gravel driveway...... My heart just sank.

[snowshoehair]

It's a good idea to check the land out during or right after a rainstorm to see where the water wants to go.

[o&itw]

Originally Posted by BamaSpek

I need to install a culvert from the road and a driveway up to the house site. The drive rises and will be on the north side of the property with a slope upward and then 90 to the house site. I have some pics but am not sure if they are good enough for someone to give me ideas. here are my questions..

Can I leave the drive topsoil,,,etc just cut trees level with the ground...there are only a few and I could potentially go around them. That leads to the second question...should it go straight form the street or curve to about being washed out. I will try and post better pics but this one show the northern property boundry stated out and is from the vantage point of on the hill looking at the road where the culvert will be placed.

Expense is a pretty big factor, but I want to to be big enough to get a large equiptment through, up. The culvert will be 40' long.

It makes a big difference where you live. If you have good soil, you will have to put quite a bit of gravel down, maybe an expensively large amount. You do NOT want to dig down. Just remove any excessive organic matter. The drive will sink a couple of times in the spring when the soil thaws and gets soupy, so you may have to place another layer of gravel the second year.

In the southern part of Missouri, there is so little top soil in many places that one can simply drive over the grass enought to kill it and, viola, one has a drive. I'ts not much for a garden or row crops though. :~

When I first moved here from Illinois, I would see people drive vehicles out in a field all times of the year... I was amazed, if we had done that in Illinois any time but in the heat of July or Aurgust when the ground was very dry, or in January or February when the ground was frozen we would have been axle deep in no time. If you have just moved to the area, check with one of the local residents.

[agmantoo]

Building a road that has a crown on it is essential. If water stands on the road potholes will result due to the hydraulic action from the wheels traveling through the puddles. Once a pothole starts on nonpaved road the potholes are nearly impossible to repair. Therefore it is best to prevent them from the get go. The cheapest material that I have located that performs for a road is crushed concrete. Many concrete plants have washout that they cannot recycle. This material can often be purchased for a few dollars per cubic yard. The crush concrete performs better than what we call crusher run from the quarry, it looks like quarry stone once it is in position. I built a long road over very steep terrain using the crushed concrete and it gets a limited amount of tractor trailer traffic each day and it is continuing to hold up.

[Chuck R.]

Originally Posted by BamaSpek

so what was the total cost of a gravel driveway...... My heart just sank.

A little over $4500 for materials, and the pipe which was $210 delivered. Really the cost of gravel isn't bad, but depending on the cost of fuel getting where you want it can be expensive. The local quarry is bout 7 miles from my place, so delivery isn't too bad.

Add diesel and equipment rental and it was about $6200 just for the road work.

Total we spent about 15K this fall, but that was for a mini-excavator, and 6K to take the top of a hill off for a barn/house site. We contracted out for the house/barn prep which was leveling about 4 acres and sloping towards the county road. We looked in to renting a dozer, but they're about $2400 per week and around $700 to get it delieved/picked up. By the time you add diesel, it';s just easier to hire somebody to do it.

Chuck

[ericjeeper]

By all means the Railroad. They keep the roadway elevated and provide drainage. I ditched down both sides of my driveway. Left the center elevated.Then topped with #2 stone then topped that with # 5. Been that way for going on 5 years without adding any more stone.
My county Highway Dept Forced me to install a 12" culvert where I meet the road.. I asked the guy"How deep?" He said " leave yourself at least 12 inches of stone on to to protect the pipe" Ok now I have a 12 inch pipe 24 inches to the bottom of the tube.. and no ditch Water stands on both ends.. What brain surgeons we have working there aye? I am going to fill in each end.. There is virtually no flow going down the road where my drive is.. Oh well I met their demands..

[Wolf mom]

If I read your guestion correctly, you said you'd have a 90 degree turn to the house? If so, you may want to reconfigure that into a curve.

I just had 25 tons of gravel delivered & the driver argued with me about not being able to make my "S" curve as it was too tight for the size truck he was driving.

He did make it, but just barely.