Raising my driveway...

[Lil Foot]

My place up north has always had a little water across the driveway when it rains heavily, but the county has recently re-graded the roadbeds, ditches, & culverts. We used to get runoff from a couple blocks, now it's more like 1 1/2 miles. A 16" county culvert brings all this water across my drive, with the results shown below in the first two pics. When I brought this to the county's attention, they took the attitude of "Yeah, so what?"
So my only solution was to raise the driveway & put in a culvert to get the water under the drive & past my buildings before it spreads out on my second acre.
I used the FEL for moving & leveling fill & moving & positioning rocks; the backhoe saw some use in positioning rocks; the box blade cut water courses, moved & leveled fill, & did some rock positioning; the front blade scraped the cinders that I would reuse off the areas to be lifted, and did some fill spreading & leveling; my 920lb roller used for leveling & compaction; and the skid was used to move rock.
The 3rd pic shows the original grade, some washed away cinders, and the yellow arrow shows about where the county culvert is located.

 

[Lil Foot]

We began by building retaining walls. All but 14 of the largest rocks came from my land, with the others from two neighbor's places. Rocks where positioned & fitted by hand with levers, large & small sledges, & some tractor work.

 

[Lil Foot]

More wall pics

 

[Lil Foot]

Cinders scraped off areas to be raised for re-use after roadbed was completed.

 

[Lil Foot]

Natural water courses were deepened, following their natural flow tendencies.

 

[Lil Foot]

Retaining walls were backfilled with rock & dirt.

 

[Lil Foot]

17" x 22" x 25' (2) pc culvert was laid & backfilled. My B7100 in the background, the neighbor on his B2150 in the foreground. This was the only help we had on the entire project- a heavy rain was pending, & we wanted to get the culvert set before it hit, so he volunteered to help. As is typical of Arizona weather, the storm then passed us by.

 

[Lil Foot]

More culvert pics

 

[Lil Foot]

At this point, we began adding various fills to raise the roadbed; some dirt from the water courses & dirt I had stockpiled, a couple of large pickup loads of old brick, block, pavers, concrete, and of course, rocks. Several neighbors gave me their leftover piles of gravel, leach bed fill, (2"-3" cinders) 2" river rock mixed with sand & dirt, #2 red select road bed material, and a lot of cinder/dirt/gravel mix that the county had scraped off their roads & pushed onto my property. The 1st two pics show the first 25 tons of real road bed material we had delivered- this was a mix of 1 1/2" rock, various fine crushed rock, & dirt. It packed like concrete. 3rd pic shows the 2nd & last load of that same great material.

 

[Lil Foot]

1st two pics show the finished road bed, after leveling, watering in, and compacting with the 7700lb, 4wd, crew cab, 1 ton F350. Last two pics show the beginning of the final covering of cinders, right up until my left front wheel seized, stopping work until I get it repaired. (last parts due in today, then I will re-assemble the axle, take it back up north, install it & finish spreading the cinders)
We calculated the total weight of rocks, fill, & dirt moved to be right at 291 tons, which seems high, but much of it had to be dug up or collected, piled for storage, then re-moved to where it was used. It was a lot of work, and a lot of fun, but it took way too long. Work was stopped more times than I could count for family/friend emergencies/responsibilities and the like, and a few weather stoppages, and the one mechanical problem.
I think I have enough cinders on hand to finish, and it should only take a half day or so.

 

[85Hokie]

That is some very impressive work - and a lot of it too! Make sure to show pictures WHEN it rains, like to see all your hard work in action!

 

[skeets]

Dude that is some fine road work there!! And dont you just love the county engineers when you tell them they screwed up,,, Es not my problem man!

 

[D2Cat]

That is a lot of work, and planning. Once those loads are dumped between the rocks on the driveway, you better have a way to get them leveled or you might be locked in! Looks nice.

Maybe Orange Tractor Talk members should form a group to have a "Spring Fling" to get member together to do a project, camp out, socialize. Participants bring their own tractor,implements and groceries for an extended weekend.

 

[bmblank]

That is freakin awesome. Maybe you could come up to Michigan to do my driveway...
Around here if you did something like that anywhere near the road the road commission would have a fit. Well, I suppose, if they knew about it, anyway.
I've been working on filling my driveway in a bit and it's ridiculous how much material it takes.
How much $$ did you spend on that approximately?

 

[Lil Foot]

Thanks for the comments everyone! Nice to have one's work appreciated!
We've actually had three killer monsoon rains (and several normal ones) since it's been mostly complete, and it worked flawlessly, exactly as planned.
I didn't think to get pics, but I will.
I expected some grief from the county for not getting a permit (they just want the permit cash) but either they didn't notice or they figured I didn't spend enough- there is a minimum $ amount before you're required to get a permit.
As for money spent, there was fuel for the tractor, (not much) and for the F350, which hauled a lot of truck & trailer loads up from the valley. (143 miles one way, 1106ft up to 6903ft) I didn't keep track of that, and only paid for those last two loads of roadbed material- $580 for each load. Only about $140 for each load of material, the rest was hauling costs from a town 78 miles away, down off the mountain. Our local hauler is Baggy Pants Gus (really) and i've used him for probably 25+ years. He uses a tandem telescoping rig like the one pictured below- he drops the trailer, dumps the front load, then drives the loaded rear trailer box into the empty front trailer box, dumps it, then drives the rear box back onto it's chassis, re-hooks the trailer & he's off for the next load. Cool rig.

 

[ShaunRH]

I don't know Arizona law but California law makes it a crime to alter a waterway and grading without considering the damage that can be done downstream. Our County here has taken to court, fined and forced changes to owners that don't get proper permits for grading and waterway changes. If the County had caused that kind of mess here, it would be up a creek without a paddle given how much people around here hate the County nosing into stuff like this.

I'd see if the County would be willing to pay for some of your hard work but it sounds like you didn't need to permit it so maybe there's no rules at all for this kind of thing.

Your work is fantastic looking and seems to be a large amount of work! I might have to steal some of your ideas for my ranch!

 

[Lil Foot]

I like the idea of a meet/work/camp kinda thing, we used to do a lot of meets with the Yamaha Rhino crowd. Ride, socialize, eat, drink, swap mods & fixes, etc..
But alas, I'm kinda on the other end of the country from most of you, plus my tractor looks pretty good at a distance & in pics, but not sure I want anyone to see it close up, she's not quite that pretty in real life.

 

[Lil Foot]

In Arizona, what the state gets really upset with is you redirecting your runoff onto someone else's property- whether it's natural runoff or county supplied runoff.
If I would have cut a channel to route this water off my property onto someone else's, (or onto public land) they would have come down on me like 291 tons of rock & fill.
Essentially I've only deepened the natural flow channel, took it under the drive instead of over/through it, and got it past my buildings, where it can spread out as it always did.
As for the county slipping me a little cash for my work, they're probably still laughing at my suggestion that I would not need this work if not for their changes to the drainage. Guess I'm lucky that the permit system is based on money spent, rather than dollar value of the job- I got an estimate from a local excavator, and he wanted $8500-$9500.

 

[ShaunRH]

...I got an estimate from a local excavator, and he wanted $8500-$9500.

Ouch... I'd have done what you did. Just curious, how much did it run you? (beyond all the additional aches and pains you are probably suffering from now.)

 

[Lil Foot]

Ouch... I'd have done what you did. Just curious, how much did it run you? (beyond all the additional aches and pains you are probably suffering from now.)

As for money spent, there was fuel for the tractor, (not much) and for the F350, which hauled a lot of truck & trailer loads up from the valley. (143 miles one way, 1106ft up to 6903ft) I didn't keep track of that, and only paid for those last two loads of roadbed material- $580 for each load. Only about $140 for each load of material, the rest was hauling costs from a town 78 miles away, down off the mountain.