How To Repair Gravel Driveway

Friday, Feb 8, 2022 viii:48:00 AM Categories: Hard Landscaping Home Improvement Tips

In this article, you'll acquire

The usual problems that homeowners experience with gravel driveways.
Step by step instructions on how to properly care for a gravel driveway.
Reasons why you may want to consider a paved driveway in the future.

Nosotros live out in the country. Similar all things, our choice of where to settle down has its pro'southward and con's. One of the abrasive con's is that we had to create our own driveway, which concluded upward beingness long and on a slope. When we checked into all the possible options, nosotros realized that a gravel driveway was the cheapest, simply we would have to maintain it more ofttimes than a paved drive.

DRIVEWAY OPTIONS Comparison CHART

Cost of Driveway Construction	Driveway Maintenance
Paver bulldoze - most expensive	Gravel - most maintenance required
Concrete - next in cost	Asphalt - 2nd-well-nigh maintenance
Cobblestone - a scrap more than costly than gravel	Concrete - a flake less maintenance than asphalt
Gravel - near economical	Paver drive - to the lowest degree maintenance required

No trouble! We said happily to each other. We're retired, we've got time, it'll be fun!

It was non fun.

Oh well, it was our first state habitation, it'south understandable. What did we know virtually shovels and rollers? Tractors? Aren't they for farmers? We wanted to enjoy nature, non grow it.

Below are some tips nosotros picked up along the mode. If you accept a gravel drive, so yous know how frequently it needs attending. Hopefully, you'll find some skillful ideas here.

Maintaining a Gravel Driveway: 10 Tips that Won't Drive You Crazy

Get the correct mindset - Mother Earth News , a popular DIY mag that'southward been going strong since 1970, says that this is the kickoff thing you lot need to do to maintain your gravel driveway. You lot want a proficient grasp on the idea that what yous're trying to produce is a shine, level surface. And so yous want to have that a perfectly smooth surface is something yous'll never attain. The reality is that any undulations will crusade a vehicle to bounce. Over fourth dimension, this creates larger, deeper problem areas that volition eventually be too big to ignore. There's no fashion around it, but become for that table-superlative, polish surface anyhow, even though information technology'due south impossible to attain.

Get the stats – Hither are some of the stats from The Gravel Expert that yous may or may non accept come up beyond when y'all start built your gravel driveway. Even if you didn't take this data and so, knowing it at present may be a neat help in maintaining your gravel drive.

How to Calculate the Corporeality of Gravel in Cubic Yards

Ideal thickness = 3"-eight"

1. Length x width ten desired thickness

ii. Divide the resulting number by 27 to obtain the cubic yards

three. Add 4% to the number of cubic yards to compensate for compaction.

How to Summate the Percent of Grade

Ideal = 2% - 5%

Dissever the summit by the horizontal length, then multiply by 100

When buying gravel for fill – The best gravel for your driveway will be nearly every bit big as a pea, c. ¼", and have sharp edges. Large or flat gravel pieces or shine, roundish rocks cause problems such as pits. The pea-sized gravel tends to clump when pressed downwardly past a tire, which is helpful.
The "quick prepare" approach to gravel driveway maintenance – Over time, your gravel bulldoze will inevitably develop potholes. You can get a selection and shovel and even out the gravel, then tap information technology down, but this solution leaves a weak area that volition only produce some other pothole in the same place. And information technology won't take long for it to reappear, either (hence the term "quick fix").
Long-term solutions to gravel driveway maintenance – Long-term repair solutions all accept to exercise with big tools and heavy machinery. If you fix information technology yourself, these approaches crave buying, renting, or borrowing machinery that can spread and meaty gravel to form a smooth surface and reduce loose layers of stone.

You lot can hire this project out, and spare yourself the trouble of collecting a tractor, chain harrow, grader bract, box scraper, and all sorts of other intimidating machinery and tools. This was our choice for the start several years of our gravel driveway maintenance, and it worked out well, but your decision volition exist based on your ain expertise and experience.
T he proper intendance and feeding of a pothole –Potholes can be a pretty serious trouble. Your best bet is to widen the pothole by taking out the entire section, and so make full in the hole with layers of gravel, compacting each as you go.
Water woes – H2o can wreak havoc anywhere, especially with gravel driveways. If you're seeing consistent problems with ruts, washouts, and birm, your driveway probably has drainage bug. The solution is either to add enough gravel to make your drive higher than the areas surrounding it, or to install a culvert or ditch to pull the water away from the identify where it flows over the gravel and compromises it.
Snow plow harm – Winter's special, isn't it? All that pretty snow on your bulldoze. If y'all use a snow plow, though, you can wait your gravel driveway to be unrecognizable the side by side time the sun comes out. Make certain you accept steps to movement the gravel that has been pulled outward by the snowfall plow, dorsum toward the centre section of your drive.
Geotextile textile, anyone? – When all else fails, and you lot're still non gear up to upgrade to an asphalt, concrete, or paver drive, you might consider installing a geotextile layer to the substrata. Information technology corrects unstable, soggy soil.
Consider excavation – An extremely rutted gravel drive with weeds and a sub-grade that's unstable should be redone completely. Trying to set it at this signal would simply be a waste of fourth dimension.

When it'southward time to rethink…

Gravel driveway with potholes Tired of patching upwardly and fiddling with your messy gravel driveway? Maybe it'southward fourth dimension to consider putting in a paved drive, one that will concluding a long time before you ever take to recall well-nigh driveways over again.

Subsequently many years of maintaining our long bulldoze, made upward of small rocks with minds of their own and a wanderlust to become with them, nosotros finally decided to get for the asphalt. Now, no matter how many trucks or kids with ATVs turn around in our driveway, it stays where it was put in the starting time identify, instead of flying off in all directions seeking, apparently, greener pastures.

Though it may not seem similar it to y'all, later on dealing with a gravel drive, you practise have an abundance of options that will require less maintenance, last longer, and do the job ameliorate.

Source: https://www.greatdayimprovements.com/10-gravel-driveway-maintenance-tips.aspx