i would appreciate some input on road building. i spent last spring and fall clearing my road/driveway to my building pad some l200' x 18'wide the county where my land is located (northern calif) states that the road bed must have 4-6" of aggregate base. i did get prices from some grading contractors and they want a small fortune.. i can get a quarry to deliver the aggregate base and spread it evenly for what i feel is a fair price. as the base has to be watered before it"s compacted, could i wait until there is a good rain and then have it compacted or is there another way i should be looking at this? any help/advise would be appreciated.. thanks

-- bob mccaffrey (bobmccaffrey1@netscape.net), December 25, 2000

Answers

Bob, a few years ago I had a half mile of road bulldozed in to here. (No regulations to deal with here.) The soil is basically deep clay. I had the dump truck drivers "tailgate" the loads, about 60 tons to start, spreading a thin layer of gravel. Some drivers are very good at this. The one whose embroidered name on his shirt identified him as "Soupbone" got distracted by my girlfriend and dumped half his gravel where I needed it least. Anyway, after about two years of adding gravel and filling holes with rock, and - most important - just driving over it and letting everything settle down, I have a very good road. Of course it will always require maintenance.

-- Sam in W.Va. (turnip55a@yahoo.com), December 25, 2000.

and the moral of this story is if you have truck drivers around keep your woman out of sight.lol Bob in s.e.ks.

-- Bobco (bobco@hit.net), December 25, 2000.

OR make her get dressed before coming out to watch :>)

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 25, 2000.

We started over with a clay road that had washed badly.Had it graded. You need to put in culverts if you haven't, to keep it from washing.

We had to wait till the road was dry to gravel,because it turned to soup when it rained. We had to drive thru the field till we could get it dry enough. It poured the day he completed the grading.I was up to my calves in clay mud.

Once it was dry enough to bring in a 30 ton truck, then we went with larger gravel to build up a good base.

We have been driving on it, and in a few years will put on the regular road gravel.I can't remember the grade sizes.Perhaps someone can help with that.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 25, 2000.

If you are on clay I have some advice. I had clay 'suitable for makin pots' in Texas. You could put all the gravel/rock you wanted on it and it would just sink never to be seen again. The only way to deal with it was to put down a good layer of limestone base...don't skimp on it either. Let it cure a couple of months. Then put down your gravel. I saw a kind of unique road goin through a guys place once(won't meet code but might be used elsewhere).....he took used asphalt shingles and laid down several layers to make his path. Worked right well. Gee.....I haven't had anyone get distracted by me in a long time...guess overalls and muck boots aren't as cute as I thought they were :o).

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), December 25, 2000.

idealy the agragate would be places on a firm compacted subgrade of existing soil/undisturbed materal graded to eliminate pooling of water . a coarser layer of crushed stone/aggragate and a top layer of finer crushed stone on the surface .is the normal procedure followed here if you are in a moist area and on clay soils you may want to build under drains which are at the simplest a french drain spanning the leanth of the pavement .in soft clay soils a layer of woven geotextile will help to prevent the aggragate from being mixed with the clayes ,and will increase the roadways streanth .good ditches will prolong the life of the road also waterbreaks if it is on a slope .these consist of speedbumps built of the gravel to direct the water flow off the road into the ditch.you dont want to turn the road into a river bed . I work for an civil engenering company verifying pavement construction,but our agragates and underlying soil types would be very different than you have in your area and we are in a wet climate here with a predomonance of fat /greasy clays and a frost line at 36''.your design would also need to consider trafic loads and wheight of those loads.hope these thoughts are of help to you

-- george darby (windwillow@fuse.net), December 29, 2000.

If you are going to be there forever & want to go whole hog this is what I would do. Get the road up on grade, that is bring in matl. so the road is higher than the surrounding area. Bring in some fly ash or kiln dust & have it tilled in with a bomag. then use a sheep's foot to compact it then put about 4" of 2 " crusher run. compact this with a vibratory roller. then go back over it with some 1-1/2" crusher run. if you get the crown right, & maint. the road, it should last a very long time. In the mean time, I will keep on hauling in the waste matl. from the local redi-mix plant & my 165 Ferguson to spread it with.

-- Okie-Dokie (tjcamp6338@aol.com), January 01, 2001.