Making a driveway (insight anyone?)

exalted512

We were planning on just doing something like this.


I understand what you're talking about though. I wouldn't have put it that close initially (because we are going to do the concrete), but the way county road is (dead end and not wide), the 18-wheeler had to literally back up 0.7 miles to get to our property, then he dumped the base onto the county road itself. It just happened that some of it fell really close to end end (and past it a little bit actually)
-Cody

Polkie2009

tonyb wrote: »

I hear ya man, just make the end of that culvert farther from the road is all I'm saying. If you put a concrete base on top as is, it will get undermined, gravel washed away from underneath, if you don't move that end farther away. They sell easy culvert bands to add pipe that just use 2 bolts to tighten. Think about it my friend.

+1 on this, post more pics if you can.

exalted512

I uploaded the album this morning.

http://s79.photobucket.com/user/Exalted512/library/Property/11-2-13%20Road?sort=3&page=1

-Cody

tonyb

Nice spread there Cody. I'm not sure on the weather there in your part of Texas, if it's dry most the year I don't see a problem. However if you get a lot of rainfall, especially in short periods, that steep side of the road is going to wash away. Hence my suggestion to make it more gradual. But....nice spread, where's the pond going ?

Polkie2009

How deep of layer of limestone are you going with Cody? I would think you would need at least 6" -8" to keep from developing ruts over time.

exalted512

We're doing about 4-6" right now. We will do more later, but we're more concerned with getting the 'base layer' down. Once we get the shop built, we will bring in a few more truck loads.
-Cody

steveinaz

Nice!! I think we might have similar tractors.

exalted512

That's actually my father-in-law's 5210. (That's him on it in the pictures) Good tractor...would be great if it was 4wd. lol. I have a bigger tractor, a Ford 6610, also 2wd, but I don't have a loader for it yet. Doesn't matter how big it is if you can't use it

I'm torn between buying a loader for it and weighting the rear, or selling it and getting a smaller 4wd Kubota. As of right now though, I'll just borrow my father-in-laws and it doesn't cost me anything except for fuel and all the beer we can drink.
-Cody

steveinaz

I've got a vintage 198'somethingish 850 John Deere. Only bush hog mower and leveling blades though.

exalted512

Vintage? 1980s is brand new for a tractor...haha

Got a couple more dump truck loads in and spread. Went further than I expected it to. I think 3 more 18-wheeler loads and we'll be set. We will need more to get the road where I want it, but it'll be a great start and good enough for what we're trying to accomplish in the short-term.

More pictures
http://s79.photobucket.com/user/Exalted512/library/Property/11-10-13%20Road?sort=3&page=1
-Cody

tonyb

For a temporary access road it should be ok. Really wish you would have taken some topsoil off before dumping the stone though. You'll eventually have to make that road a tad bit higher than the surrounding ground as it looks lower to me. Or grade it so it slopes from the high side to the low so water doesn't sit on it. I would also suggest when your ready to finish it, you roll that stone with something that's heavier and vibrates.

exalted512

I had originally planned on taking the top soil off, but after speaking with a few different people about the soil type, they all agreed that it wasn't really necessary for a drive way. I work for a transportation agency and the people I talked to are researchers whom test exactly what I'm doing. If they say it's okay, then it is. They mentioned it might develop some soft spots as the organic stuff under it dies and rots, but nothing too bad. It wouldn't have been worth the extra time and diesel to scrape everything off, and with all the rain we've been getting, it would've been a muddy mess trying to work in it.

I'm happy with the work so far. Doesn't look like we'll be working on it this weekend. We're supposed to be getting some rain Fri/Sat/Sun. For all the 18-wheeler loads we've been getting, since the county road is very narrow and a dead end, he's been backing up for 0.7 miles and dumping the base on the road, and we've been moving it off to where it's needed. I don't want to pay for any more bobtail loads out there because it's quite a bit more expensive per ton. I'm hoping it might be dry enough by Thursday/early Friday that he can just pull in straight and turn around on our property. Or do we wait and hope it doesnt rain much and it dries out more next week...it's hard to say at this point unfortunately.
-Cody

tonyb

That's the whole purpose to removing the topsoil, so you don't get ruts. Plus just looking at the pics, the road is lower than the surrounding landscape. See, top soil moves, even with stone over it, over time. If you ever plan on paving it, or having heavy traffic on it like loaded Semi trucks, you'll get ruts in the pavement which will be costly to fix. I build roads for a living, I know a thing or two about it.

If you leave the topsoil there, your going to need a lot more stone on top, if you want to avoid future ruts anyway. If it's just car traffic, then I wouldn't worry too much.

If you have heavy traffic, another thing you could do is in the soft spot area's put an underdrain pipe about 1.5 feet down from the high side to the low across the road so water doesn't sit under the road. It would have to be a heavier plastic pipe like an SDR26 or heavier. It has holes drilled in it and a mesh sheeting over it to let water in and keep dirt out. These however do clog over time but it would take years, depending.

When it rains, pay attention to where water sits and the natural flow. You want to help the water go on it's natural flowing path unobstructed and avoid it sitting on or around the road. Road building takes some thought put into it if you don't want to keep maintaining it over the years due to erosion, soft spots and ruts that constantly have to be filled in, sink holes that will have cars and trucks avoiding the road like Rosie O'Donnell in a bordello. Just some food for thought my friend, it's really not rocket science, just like the old saying...." An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Good luck to you.

exalted512

Rented a tiny skid steer last Wednesday. Terex PT-30. Still too wet to drive on the property, so the 18-wheeler is dropping the base on the county road still. He was 2 hours late, which pissed me off. 2 hours wasted. Anyway, got quite a bit accomplished for such a small, slow machine. Top speed of 6.5 mph sucks when you're having to drop the rock off 500' away. Still managed to put 10.2 hours on it Wednesday.

Some pictures:
http://s79.photobucket.com/user/Exalted512/library/Property/11-20-13%20Road?sort=3&page=1

Hoping to be done next weekend with it.
-Cody

exalted512

So the road is almost done. I wasn't able to use my father-in-law's tractor, so I rented a little skid steer from Home Depot. It was pretty damn small, but I don't have a big truck, so this at 3600 pounds plus the trailer - my truck had all it ever wanted...lol.



Anyway, I took off last Wednesday and got out there around 6:30. I've only used the pedal skid steers before and this one was a joy stick, so it took me a bit to get used to. This one was also smaller than what I've used. It couldn't even do donuts. It would bog down. WTF is the purpose of a rental skid steer if you can't do donuts in it? Putting the bucket up made it a little easier, but the tracks would barely come up off the ground...lmao. Almost flipped it once. Glad no one saw that :eek: Anyway...here's some pics

Clearing off the top soil:



The road is heading into the middle of the shop. Shop will be similar to this, but different color. 50x40x14


No 'during' shots. The truck driver was supposed to show up at 8:30 with the first load - ended up showing at 10:30. ****. The only time I was off the tractor was from 8:30-10:30 waiting on his ****...and piss/beer swap breaks. Ended up running the tractor for 10.2 hours...would've been 12 and I'd probably be a lot closer to being done had the truck driver shown up when he was supposed to.

My goofy wife, doing whatever it is she does. These pictures were taken last weekend.


The truck driver still couldn't drive on to the property, so he dumped on the county road and I moved the first couple loads to where the rock should be (on my road), but I was running out of time, so I just moved it from the county road to my road. It takes a long time to move that much rock with such a small loader...especially when I'm taking it 600' to the end of my road at a blistering 6.5mph. Anyway, that's why there's a couple of random stacks of rock






Before:

After:


Before:

After:


Before:

After:


Before:

After:


You can tell in the last picture, it's not as wide as it needs to be. I just ran out of time. I did it on Wednesday because it was supposed to rain later in the week, and you can see where it's wet. I wish I would've had just a little more time to at least cover up a little more ground with rock. It's too thick in some spots as well. This Friday, I'll be out there with my father-in-law's tractor to finish it. He has a box blade and the bucket is twice the size of the one I was using on Wednesday, so it shouldn't take much time to finish it.

Next on the list is doing the pad work for the concrete. I just need to get some dry weather now. All this rain sucks. We've got another 3" in the last week. Just getting material out there is a big pain in the **** when it's so wet they have to dump it on the road and I have to haul it to where I want it. In the case of the pad, its 700' away.

I was hoping the pad would be done by now and the concrete work would be scheduled. Then I could use December to put the building up and my Christmas break to move in. Now I'm just hoping the concrete will be done by Christmas. With all the rain, I have no idea if that will be a real possibility or not. Which means the building will be going up in January/February sometime...the coldest/windiest part of the year...which is what I was trying to avoid this whole time. Oh well.
-Cody

exalted512

Road is 'done'. It still needs to be driven on and packed. I didnt have enough time to spread all the rock last time and it rained, so we were putting rock on wet soil, which is what I wanted to avoid, but it happens.








We left a small pile at the end because I'm sure we'll have some low spots that need to be filled in. Also got a temporary gate in. We put the t-posts in with the loader on the tractor. Got a little too happy with the one on the far left. Oops.


Now we just have to wait until it dries up enough where a dump truck can go out there and dump in some select fill for the pad. Weather isn't looking like it's going to let up though.
-Cody

exalted512

Well, the road has dried up. (8) 15-ton loads of dirt has compacted it nicely. We need to run a box blade on it to smooth it out and fix some of the low spots, but we're waiting for the slab to be done first. No since in fixing it and waiting for several 80,000 pound cement trucks to screw it up again.

Got electricity. They got stuck on the neighbors property. Neighbor is a b anyway.




The setup is pretty cool. The little green box has everything you need. It's got a main so you can shut off everything and hook up to it. It's got a few spots for breakers and they put a 20A breaker in for an outlet right there on the box.

5 loads of dirt to start the pad


5 loads leveled off.


My little truck / lawn mower getting 1 upped Probably more like 6 upped.


Got 3 more loads of dirt brought in yesterday. Our concrete guy is doing the rest. He'll be leveling it out, compacting it - etc. He'll get the forms in next week, then we'll come in and do the plumbing on the 18th-20th. And they will pour the slab and set the anchor bolts the following week. We'll give it a few days to cure, then we'll be having a good ol' barn buildin' party on Feb 8th or 15th ...or both. That's the schedule as of now. Just depending on what the weather does.

Then we start on the build out of the inside. At least that doesn't depend on weather, so it should go fairly quickly. After 3.5 months, it seems things are finally falling into place. I was hoping to be at this stage in late November. Damn rain. Never here when you want it, but when you don't want it - you get 11 inches of it in a couple of months.
-Cody