Gravel Driveway Maintenance

[ItBmine]

I wasn't bashing engineers. Just saying....sometimes they over think the obvious.

I was just giving a simple solution to make a maintenance free driveway. Not guessing. I've done it multiple times and it worked.
And we have heavy trucks and equipment driving over it daily and it hasn't come apart at our place.

As long as it is asphalt millings the op has, and if he wants to obtain a minimum 2000 pound roller and water it as he rolls, he won't have to touch it again for a long time.

 

[Corney]

A warm day doesn't hurt with grading milling either!

 

[cerlawson]

Chances are you didn't over water on your jobs. Low on silt and any extra gets moved by the rolling.

As to engineers, there are a bunch of them that I would question their ability to advise on this problem, at least two of which I have fired. I even had an assistant graduate CE with a master's degree who's dad owned a construction company. Can you image such a guy not knowing what a back-hoe is? He was good at highly theoretical calculations, but that's all. Useless out on the job.

 

[ShaunRH]

Engineer mistakes are usually when they forget to account for a variable/condition they either didn't think of or didn't know existed. Any ethical engineer will always do their best to take into account all considerations and design for it. It's the crappy ones that just take the easy route and try to fit standard solutions into situations that aren't standard.

Non-engineer types (like me) that know just enough to be dangerous, tend to come in two flavors: Get it done quick and dirty (and all the problems that come with that), and build everything like it needs to make it to Mars and back (and all the cost that goes with that).

I've done things both ways, on the cheap and expensive/over-built as heck. I tend to default to the overbuilt side which costs me a lot of money but I feel happier with it.

Drainage and hills, well, I'd probably get a second or third opinion on my own 'answers' to the problem just to be safe. Hopefully one of those might be someone with a clue as to what they are doing... professionally.

 

[Daren Todd]

We used to have a driveway that was 1/2 mile up hill. Having a crown in the road helped considerably. It had a shallow ditch on either side of the road. Ditch was dammed up every 200 to 300 ft and diverted the water out into the woods. Cut down considerably on the wash outs.

 

[burhead]

My driveway sounds just like that of the op. Mine has a base of white rock that was never graded right to properly drain the water. I got tired of picking all the white rock piles out of my grass and put down a layer of crushed asphault. This lasted for many years. I neglected it for a few years and started having some erosion problems. I brought in another couple loads of asphault. This time the quality was poor. There was alot of dirt in the mix and it wasn't as oily as the original load. I plan to get a few more loads in the spring from my original supplier. I believe the key is to get the most pure stuff with a good amount of oil left in it. Put it down before the weather gets hot and get it rolled in good. Once July hits it seems to pack in real good. I have alot of spots from the original batch that are as tough as real asphault. I can buy the stuff for about 15 buck a ton and have a buddy that loads it and hauls it for me. He claims the best stuff is at the bottom of the pile so that is what he brings me.

 

[Balvar24]

There are cheap engineers just like there are cheap contractors. Guess what happens when both end up on the same job?

 

[ItBmine]

There are cheap engineers just like there are cheap contractors. Guess what happens when both end up on the same job?

You get every highway job out there, since they all go to the low bidder.

 

[lakebota]

On the gravel drive maintenance, drainage is important and I have completely changed my approach to gravel drives. First clear and grub roots, grade a roadbed that has a single cross-slope to eliminate ditches unless absolutely necessary (don't concentrate and direct unless outlet is into a natural drainage).
If you have any "soft" or spring areas, de-water by over ex, lay filter fabric (woven type) and lay a blanket of clean rock (3/4 x 1" no fines) and top with grade separation fabric, more of the above fabric, and outlet the "blanket of rock into a perforated pipe or daylight to a natural drainage. Top the fabric with a well graded clean base rock type material. On steep areas one can further treat the rock by applying penetrating oil (liquid asphalt) or cement treat the base by having a plant mix in their design amount of cement into the base material.
Here is info on the material: http://www.cement.org/docs/default-...oil_cement/pa050-03_reduced-size.pdf?sfvrsn=2
An option is one of many types of cell-type geo grid materials to correct soft, or steep areas, use with or without sub surface drainage, and with or without cement or asphalt treated bases.
I'll say this about engineer vs architect vs contractor vs owner because of my experience through a career in engineering I have seen overwhelmingly more problems (and expense) created by the latter three.
Two comments, the "n" of a smooth bore pipe is substantially higher than corrugated and based on a hyd study may have been adequate. I'm curious as to who designed and installed the small culvert. Was/is it temporary for use during construction of a road section in which a box or other larger structural culvert would be later constructed?
Casual comments without enough info make it difficult to base a solid opinion.