Raising my driveway...

[skeets]

Ya done good,, my self I wouldnt say shyt to anybody about what you did

 

[Daren Todd]

Lil Foot, we had an issue with the county a few years back. Culvert down the road washed out because it was too small to handle the water. County came out and replaced it with the minimum 18" diameter that they require. Then put enough gravel to make it even with the street. Every house on the street has a minimum of 2-24" culverts. Mines a 36"squashed (oval), neighbors is a 36". I went with the oval, due to wanting to concrete over the top of it. The culvert kept blocking up and damming up the ditch and causing the road and driveways up hill to wash out. County Road forman didn't care and wouldn't do anything about it. Took all of us sending bills to the county judge for time and material to fix our driveways before anything got done about it. County actually paid for half my concrete


Great job on your road

 

[Lil Foot]

Spread the remaining cinders I had on hand, will probably get another pickup & trailer load next week to finish the job.

 

[Lil Foot]

85Hokie wanted some action shots- not a big rain, but enough to get the idea.
1st pic is the county culvert that started this whole mess, 2nd is my watercourse from that culvert to the driveway, 3rd my culvert under the raised roadbed.

 

[Lil Foot]

These pics show the watercourse from my culvert out to the end of the watercourse where the water can spread out & disperse.

 

[Corney]

http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18577&d=1444748870

Baggy pants rig is what we called a transfer trailer when we used them in BC. Can get into tight spots and still haul a long distance at a reasonable price. The cost of that aggregate per load is cheap compared to here.

 

[Lil Foot]

I finally picked up some more cinders & finished the driveway. I brought in another 2.67 tons, bringing the total tonnage to just shy of 294 tons.
Who says you can't do big projects with a small tractor?

 

[MagKarl]

Exactly Lil foot, One bite at a time. My tractor and backhoe have paid for themselves in $avings over hiring out or renting equipment, and the satisfaction of doing it all myself is priceless. Long as I don't count my time.

 

[Lil Foot]

Agreed, and the seat time is a bonus- I pretty much always enjoy it, and I have wanted a tractor since I was a kid.

 

[curiden25]

This project of yours is amazing! I have a L4400 standard shift 4x4 tractor. With a grapple & bucket. I had some old train box cars on my property. Sold one. The other was so heavy & rusted was no good. Couldn't move it so I started cutting it up with my torch rig. Took me a week but with the graffle. I loaded the bad pieces & hauled them to the scrap yard. It's amazing what we can do when we set our minds to something. As my dad used to say you don't need the newest equipment to do the job, you have to know your equipment. He was a logger so doing more with less was his specialty. I know you have a lot of time in this not only functional but visually architectural looking project. Great job! What is in what you call cinders?

Sent from my HTC6600LVW using Tapatalk

 

[Lil Foot]

Thanks! the cinders are just that- volcanic cinders from the Flagstaff area. They are relatively light weight & cheap ($5-$7/ton) provide amazing traction, and lock together like you wouldn't believe. Look good. too.
Like this:

 

[Lil Foot]

This past week I did a little more on my raised driveway project. Heavy rains revealed that runoff from the county road was running against the upstream bank of the roadbed. Not a lot, but over years it might cause some erosion problems.
I lined the bottom of the bank with some rock, then cut a channel parallel to the bank to carry runoff to the existing water course that goes through the culvert. Pics are a little hard to see, (lots of shade from trees) but the 1st shows the before & the 2nd shows the channel, about an inch deep next to the bank, and about 5" deep on the other side. That should be enough to start the runoff cutting a new watercourse away from the bank.

 

[Lil Foot]

The drama continues. The county culvert that dumps runoff onto my property has never flowed freely, causing water to back up & flood on the opposite side of the road, then washout the road in front of my place, four times in 30 years. After begging the county for help, (fat chance) I finally figured out that the phone company, 30+ years ago, trenched through the culvert, and laid a phone cable in it, creating a "snare" to catch stuff & plug the culvert. (Tell me that crew of morons couldn't tell they were trenching through a 16" steel culvert.)
The county finally agreed there was a problem, (and a common one in Coconino county) and this is their solution. They dug up the offending area, cut off about 11' of culvert, had the phone company re-route the cable underneath, spliced another piece of culvert on, did not clear the sand/gravel/clay/rocks in the old section, and buried it. ("The obstruction will wash out naturally.") They promised to come back & clear the opposite end of the culvert of dirt so that only water will go in the culvert, but never came back after almost a year of prompting. I took my little backhoe & cleared some of the dirt away away from the input end, and shoveled/chiseled/hoed about 5' of the culvert clear, and we will see how long (if at all) it takes to wash the pipe clear. I have a feeling that earth will look like the last pic before that culvert is clear.
1st pic shows cable through culvert, 2nd, the cut off culvert full of crap as buried, 3rd, re-routing the cable, 4th, the input side side with dirt halfway up.

 

[Lil Foot]

1st pic is the new output end of the culvert; 2nd, me clearing some dirt away from the input end; 3rd the new "well"; 4th, what earth will look like by the time the culvert washes clear.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Not suprising that the cheap AZ county wouldn't just dig it up and put a new culvert in.

And your probably right, it will never "wash out" without some serious help!

 

[Diydave]

If it works after your work, send the county a bill, for your time...

 

[Lil Foot]

The local county road crew said that in Flagstaff, they have a couple decommissioned fire trucks they use for blasting culverts clean, but not in our rural area.

 

[armylifer]

The work that you did is fantastic. It amazes me sometimes how much these little tractors are capable of doing. Your solution to the problem seems to be better than your highway department engineers are doing. Maybe you should think about applying for the department directors job.

 

[Lil Foot]

Thanks!

Maybe you should think about applying for the department directors job.

Naw, I wouldn't fit in... common sense, a functioning brain, willingness to listen to other people... it just wouldn't work.

 

[clay45]

I'm glad yall woke this thread up so I'd spot it. Beautiful work. I can hardly smooth out my recycled asphalt millings driveway much less do anything like that. Very very nice.