Driveway Surface

[Bob Belter]

Ahoy, BusFolks,

Maybe a bit off topic, but we have to be able to 'roll-em', and that takes a roadway.

Last winter, I was not able to be out in my Eagle for a month or so due to a soft driveway of almost 1/4 mile.

Solved very nicely:
An acquaintance who did some other earthwork for me told me of the use of asphalt road grindings for a new roadway, and the stuff is in general available for free. "Lets do it'!!!! Hauled in and spread, it packs in over time and rivals a real paved roadway, and is absolutely dust free. In my case, my old dirt path was so dusty that it would be five minutes before you knew who had arrived. In winter, it went soft and sloppy. Fixed!!! You can't believe how fast it all went, and the relatively low cost.

Enjoy /s/ Bob

[rwc]

And your sources for asphalt grindings? Where would we check to get these?? Thanks

rod

[longjohn]

Grindings, Millings,or Rap as nicknamed here. From when getting ready to pave the state stockpiles wont give away then ends up paying to have millings hauled away, if you can find someone who has small dirt or asphalt roller it makes super drive way..............fwiw...........lj

[bevans6]

It may be something to do with the freezing we get, but up here a driveway that doesn't start with 10" of gravel doesn't last at all.  It just sinks and heaves and breaks up.  Makes for expensive driveways...  I sure wish we could do something like that!

brian

[luvrbus]

Rod, in your part of the world (Texas) the stuff is hard to come by the Texas DOT mills it puts new oil in it then  they lay it back down as new asphalt, that is why Texas is not broke like the land of OZ,check your local reddi/mix concrete plants in your area they will give you the wash out for hauling it works better in your area with the black dirt.
FWIW asphalt has no strength it is only as good as the base under it

good luck

[rwc]

Yeah I have been told that about 8 inches of wash out layed down then watered and not driven on for 3 weeks will last forever and not wash out with most normal rains. I am thinkibg of going this way.

  Rod

[luvrbus]

Yep Rod but before you put it down strip the top soil and grass off the area or you will be wasting your time, if the budget allows buy a roll of geo/mat and lay down first cost around 75 cents a sy  or 300 bucks a roll and your driveway will be there for ever



good luck

[Chopper Scott]

When I lived in the country we used what they called white rock. It was generally 1 1/4 " in diameter and very rough and jagged. That made a very solid roadway that stayed. The secret is to use a rock that is very jagged in teture so it actually locks itself together while smooth stones tend to disappear into the base.

[bobofthenorth]

On really soft base what works well is pit run with serious rock in it.  You want something that has clay and gravel as well as rocks up to maybe 12 or 14 inch diameter.  Where I come from you can often get that from the edge of a pit for not much more than the hauling cost.  If you put that down and live with it for at least a year until the big rock has pounded down and then put road gravel over the top of it you will have a base that will never go away.  It will be a royal PITA to drive on for that first year and if it has enough clay in it then it will be a real mess whenever it rains but the clay binds it together and the rock keeps it from disappearing.  I expect if you had the right equipment you could pound it down and put the road gravel on right away but the poor man's solution is to just drive on it for a year.  The biggest problem with this solution is usually to convince your trucker that you really want that big of rock (and you will wonder too when he drives away).

[boxcarOkie]

We had much the same problem, but ours was expensive, "they don't give you anything in Oklahoma" trust me.  Ended up hauling in crushed rock, a whole lot of it.

Spread it out with my tractor and that solved that.

When it rained the ruts got terrible. 

And in the winter time, well y'know how that goes back here in the Heartland, don'tcha?

Sure would have been nice to have gotten some of it for "free" that would have been money for the fuel fund.

Oh well

BCO

[happycamperbrat]

I have the same sort of problem......... ie. dust when it's dry (blowing sand really, our ground is HARD) and thick sloshy mud when it is wet (not very often here though). I have a looooong driveway too. Eventually I would like concrete so that wheelchairs and stuff can easily roll on it, I can walk on it in high heals when going to church, keep down the dust, no worry about mud when it rains hard and to use it for rolling equipment. The problem with concrete is of course, the CO$T! But what if I lay down a thick course of jagged 3/4" rock (maybe 6" ?) and use it for a year, then I bring in a few inches of concrete OR if I score chunks of used concrete and lay them upside down in mud and then concrete over the top filling the gaps between the concrete and leveling out a smooth top??

[Ed Hackenbruch]

So exactly what is "washout"?  In western Wa. years ago i worked on a job that had a severe wet area. The company bought some powder from a concrete company  and spread it out on the ground and then we basically tilled into the dirt, wet it down a little and let it set for a few days. It set up as hard as, well, "concrete". They had a name for it which i don't recall, and it was just a waste product....something like Fly Ash sort of.

[luvrbus]

Probably was Fly Ash ED it comes from coal fired power plants years a ago in OK they would pay me to haul it off but they found out I was using for soil stabilization and the concrete plants started adding it to the concrete to save on cement so the last year I was in business they were charging me 14 dollars a ton to haul it off lol, it will set up a heavy soil like concrete but it's not much good on sand.
Washout is where the trucks and batch plant are washed out at days end or if they have a load returned they will add sugar to that load and dump, it will never setup hard  


good luck

[dougyes]

You can contact Eco roads. It mixes with your local soil and turns it hard as concrete. You need a grader, water truck and a roller to apply it. More info at:
http://www.terrafusion.com/

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Clifford,  Only one coal fired power plant in Wa. so it wasn't "Fly Ash", but that was the only name that popped to mind.  Washout is what i thought it was, usually the concrete trucks on our jobs wash out on site.  This stuff that we used looked just like cement in color and texture, only used it on that one job. Next spring i will have to ask some of the guys i work with if they have ever seen it used.