Driveway Gravel Recommendation

[yak651]

Looking to resurface driveway, planning on getting 3/4" crushed gravel. Anyone recommend anything different and why? Live in WI so get rain/snow/frost, etc.
Thanks for the opinons.
 

[Walt Davies]

We have both crushed shale and crushed river rock the shale
is light and will never pack down if on a hill it will wash away.
The river rock is much heavier and will pack in solid won't
wash away. Makes a real solid road, I like it much better. Just
don't use pea gravel like my uncle Frank did. BUMMER.
Walt
 

[S2710]

It is the wrong time of the year to put gravel on a driveway unless you have a auful lot of heavy traffic to pack it in. If it is not packed down good when you plow snow in the winter it will be in the road ditch or your lawn. Best time to gravel is in the late spring and early summer,and if you have a good base the 3/4 stuff will be alright.

Bob
 

[Roger in Iowa]

I use 3/4 crushed, clean, without dust. I don"t like what they call 3/4 road gravel as it contains dust.
 

[ED R]

I have a little experience using crushed gravel with the dust . I found that with the crusher dust the gravel will stay where it is put, doesn't walk away when driving over it.
 

[Dave Sherburne NY]

I thought everybody in Wi used rotten granite. Works good and packs down well.
 

[Old weldor]

If you get the crushed white rock with dust,the dust sets up like
concrete after it gets rained on. In my opinion it packs better.
 

[Billy NY]

I would disagree on the time of year, if you have solid existing subsoils or subbase, it should be graded to accept the new material, so that you can place a uniform thickness of new material.

If you are talking 3/4 crushed stone, clean, thats a mistake, but you said gravel, so I would assume the material you want to use is a crusher run with multiple sieve size aggregate, right down to dust, with optimum moisture, not too much, not too little.

If the existing road base is well drained, stable and so on, then regrade, vibratory roll that layer, then start placing the crusher run,(we call it Item #4 here per what NYS DOT specifies for subbase) grade with a crown or camber, if you look at the road in section, it has a rise in the middle for drainage. Then the most important piece of equipment you'll need to have is a vibratory roller, to compact the material, again, moisture level can play a role in achieving desired compaction, 95% or better is nice. Gravel driveways, roads, all need maintenance, and aside from going a step further and say mixing portland in with the crusher run, to help bind it further, in my opinion, the above is about as good as it gets, uniform thickness, well compacted layers, correct material, graded correctly, that vibratory roller will set the material nicely, you have to be cognizant of things that erode it, water, snowplow, what have you.

I re-did mine in '04 and aside from some water erosion that I need to redirect from the paved lane, one side of a portion of it eroded from that water coming off the half a cul-de-sac (sp?)

I'm fortunate to have photos, I lost a folder or 2 from then when my PC failed, had everything backed up and have the old drives, not sure what happened.

New D4G at the time, almost zero on the meter and paint still on the tracks. Awesome dozer from a rental outfit I used to do a lot of business with, he had not even taken delivery of it, came straight from CAT, I greased 'er up and did 2 jobs with it, just incredible compared to what I ran in the past.



My 850 Ford and the D4G, I had stockpiled useable crusher run that was existing, stockpiled and pushed off the spoil from excavating the driveway down for run of bank and screened gravel, then placed the crusher run on top, all was compacted with a small but adequate vibratory roller, I'll be darned if I can't find the finished photos, I can still see the crown I placed in one area to divert water after 8 years. Nice shot of that gravel going in, so easy to grade this loose material, made a nice shot too, I'm on a gravel/clay shale hill, so its solid, well drained, we do have some springs too, so it can get saturated on occasion.




Showing off, had to climb up on the pile and take a shot, my old D7 caterpillar's are in the background grumbling about that late model D4 LOL!



 

[Billy NY]

Let me clarify, 95% is compaction, not moisture!
 

[David G]

Wait till spring if you can.
 

[Ralph Bauer]

In sw OK, I have a source for crushed old concrete ( unsure
about size, but looks small as gravel) much closer than the
rock and gravel pits, 21 vs. 68 miles OW. Will buy some as
soon as grading blade is welded. But I never need to plow
snow either....
Ralph in OK.
 

[Walt Davies]

I missed one thing road gravel is called 3/4 minus. That means
its largest stones are 3/4 and go down in size from there
making it a real gravel to compress into a road bed. If you
order just 3/4 it's going to be all the same size and will not
compact.
One thing about our river rock out here is its loaded with lots of
small agates for the kids to find. Once I was putting in some 2
in. for a drain system and found a real nice big piece of Amber,
sorry no bugs in it. I put it aside to take to the house and it
disappeared. BUMMER
 

[jiminct]

my dad just did his 750ft drive last sept first they regraded then added a nice layer of process graded that and used a vibratory roller on it. then they added a layer of asphalt millings graded and again used the vibratory roller on it. it came out great it was able to be plowed and held up ok but we had a very mild winter. this yr it seems to have gotten even better since the heat of the summer seems to have "cured" and packed the millings tighter.
 

[JerryS]

I like the crushed gray rock with the fines left in.
 

[old]

Did a lot of work building roads in this area when I drove dump truck. If it where me and you have it in your area a load of dirty base then the 1/2-3/4 crushed stuff. The dirty base is very small fine stuff that once it has gotten wet will almost cement the larger stuff in place. Note I say almost not will