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muddy driveways!

watglen

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2009
Messages
1,314
Location
Dunnville, Ontario, Canada
Occupation
Farmer, drainage and excavating contractor, Farm d
I am sick to death of my muddy driveway. Am looking for ideas on how to fix it.

My farmyard is typical gravel over sand over clay. Pretty typical in these parts. For reasons i don't understand, the mud somehow comes up through the gravel and you wind up with more mud than stone. Its fine when its dry, but its a mess when it rains.

I got so ticked off, in 2005 i hired an ex to dig the whole area down a foot and haul it away, then bring in hundreds and hundreds of tons on granular "A' i think to fill and grade. It only took 3 years and it was back the way it was!

So what am i supposed to do besides concrete the whole thing!

I was thinking of digging it all up again, laying down geotextile or something, screening the gravel out of the spoils and re-laying those down, then fill with more new gravel.

Any other suggestions?

By the way, its not just my farm yard, my road is a total mudbath when it rains, and not too long ago the road department put down about a foot of gravel. It only takes a few years and its like it was never done.

:beatsme
 

SE-Ia Cowman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
240
Location
Iowa
You might try a product we call sea stone it is a byproduct from coal power plants it is fly ash that has water added to it then reground in to small rock chips when you put it down and sheepsfoot it in it will get as hard as concrete. We have used it a lot and had very good success with it the only trick is to keep it crowned so it does not hold water. They use it in concrete as a filler I think it slows down the cure therefore adding strength. In our area It cost about $ 5.50 a ton and our road rock is $ 12.00 a ton so it is less expensive you will still need rock on top of it but it makes a great base.
 

heavylift

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,046
Location
KS
tensar mat.... and tensar rock... we put a lot of it down for road base...

http://www.tensarcorporation.com/

the tensar rock has lot of wire in it sometimes... not ideal for a driving surface, but a better rock can be use as a topping...

there is also an AB3 type material ... I think it's 1 1/4" and smaller with lots of fines
water ....roll... when it dries it's like concrete...
but it to needs the tensar mat also

we use the tensar rock the most, which is recycled concrete,,, but do use the ab3 sometimes..

I even rolled it out in mud to make temporary roads for concrete truck.... takes about a 1 foot of rock... back a dump truck to the edge.. dump ... spread... then back the next truck farther down the road each time.. works great..
 

Raildudes dad

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
411
Location
Grand Rapids MI
Use your existing material for a base, place a geotextile separator layer and then place 6 inches of crushed concrete on top. When you dug down a foot, you created a "bathtub" to trap the water. Grade and shape to get the water to shed away from the drive. A swale on both sides of the drive to drain the new crushed concrete will help tremendously. The 3 most important things in road design, drainage, drainage, and drainage. If you have good drainage, you can get a good road with average materials. Poor drainage will ruin a road built with premium materials. Post a few photos and I might be able to give better or more appropriate suggestions.
 

watglen

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2009
Messages
1,314
Location
Dunnville, Ontario, Canada
Occupation
Farmer, drainage and excavating contractor, Farm d
Drainage drainage drainage you say. That sounds about right. Actually the driveway is graded down to the center to keep the water away from all the buildings is services.

Maybe what i should be thinking about is trenching in a few tile lines here and there. Get rid of the water underneath.

Thanks for the tips.
 

Autocar

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Messages
261
Location
ohio
After this summer I would like to see some mud, it is so dry around here that it is scary. Right now you smell smoke your checking it out. A corn feild burnt this afternoon not sure if the sheller went up with it or not. The wind has been howling all day.
 

grandpa

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2009
Messages
1,979
Location
northern minnesota
Use your existing material for a base, place a geotextile separator layer and then place 6 inches of crushed concrete on top. When you dug down a foot, you created a "bathtub" to trap the water. Grade and shape to get the water to shed away from the drive. A swale on both sides of the drive to drain the new crushed concrete will help tremendously. The 3 most important things in road design, drainage, drainage, and drainage. If you have good drainage, you can get a good road with average materials. Poor drainage will ruin a road built with premium materials. Post a few photos and I might be able to give better or more appropriate suggestions.

I'm not too impressed with the crushed concrete.(1) It seems to have a yellow milky run off that cant be good for the environment and(2) when crushed down to a usable size say 3/4 inch the concrete actually seem to rot with in a year with any kind of moisture, and (3) the fines off concrete seem to actually draw and hold the moisture....just my opinion, like something else everbody has one...bah ha ha
 

norite

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2010
Messages
483
Location
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
As mentioned above you need drainage. The idea is to drain the water but keep the clay out.

If it were me I would dig it down way below the frost line, plowing and driving will drive the frost deeper than published depths (snow covered). I'd line the excavation with some kind of geo-fabric suitable to let the water in but keep the clay particles out. Install some draintile (big O pipe) in the bottom and run it to the nearest ditch or even a dry well or sump pit. Cover draintile with sand. Next fill up hole with pit run gravel and top with your favourite gravel (gran A or B), crushed stone, etc.

It's a lot of work but if you can keep the clay out and the water drained, your problem should be over.
 

joispoi

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Messages
1,284
Location
Connecticut
A quick fix is to throw down some lyme or calcium chloride. Both will stabilize the reduce mud when wet and reduce dust when dry.
 

245dlc

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Messages
1,228
Location
Canada
Occupation
Heavy Equipment Operator
The weeping tile idea isn't bad, but don't backfill it with sand use clean drain stone. Also some types of weeping tile come with what's like a nylon sock to help keep it from plugging up with silt. After that then roll out a layer of geotextile filter cloth, it's like a big black blanket that will help keep the mud from 'pumping up' when trucks and equipment passes over it and will also give your base some structure to it. Now I'm not sure what kind of rock or gravel products you have available in that part of Ontario but the best kind of gravel is one that has been blasted screened and crushed around here we have Dolomitic limestone which hardens up really nicely with water and good compaction. If your digging your subgrade down 12" then you could start 2"minus and then switch to 3/4"minus. I hope this helps you out it's just a recommendation based on my experience working in Red River Gumbo here in Winnipeg....the mud capital of Canada. lol

http://www.canadaculvert.com/products.php
 

monkey

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2010
Messages
136
Location
lousyana
down here the water table is usually only feet below the surface.

The road building material of choice for many years was shells dredged out of the lake and or some would use oyster shells. Since the shell dredging was banned, crushed limestone is the alternative.
If you put any type of the usual gravel or rocks they would disappear very quickly into the soil. That and there is no rocks down here:D
The reason the shell and now the crushed limestone are so effective, is first they weigh less per volume and also the irregular and angular surfaces. Most quarried rock is hard, heavy, uniform in size and the hardness makes the slick. Instead of locking together they tend to slide against each other, causing them to sink under weight.
I installed a large circular drive topped with paved stones. Used crushed concrete as a base then a layer of sand as a bedding material for the pavers. After 6 years, with some occasional flooding and a few hurricanes, the drive is still as solid as when put in.
 

busdrivernine

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Messages
163
Location
TEXAS
Down here in Tx the oil field love what is call SB 2 it is crushed granite very little dust and sets up well. Not for sure what they call it in your area .
 

PSDF350

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2004
Messages
725
Location
Richmond NH
Down here in Tx the oil field love what is call SB 2 it is crushed granite very little dust and sets up well. Not for sure what they call it in your area .

Would that be crushed to a dust? If so around here we call it hardpack. As the name implies it packs hard rain runs right off doesn't penerate easily.
 

busdrivernine

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Messages
163
Location
TEXAS
Would that be crushed to a dust? If so around here we call it hardpack. As the name implies it packs hard rain runs right off doesn't penerate easily.
Not the stuf that I have put down about 1" to 1.5" in size I will get a picture of some I put down at the school here .and post it .
 

tlholiver

New Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2010
Messages
1
Location
Atlanta
Watglen your problems are very common and its so frustrating to see all of that good work, and money turn to mud. Heavylift post above referred to Tensar as a solution. I have worked for Tensar for almost 30 years, so I am familiar with the problem! The posts above contain some good advice. In order of priority and effectiveness I would suggest
*Drainage
*Drainage
*Drainage
*Selection of suitable aggregate
*Adequate layer thickness
*Subgrade Improvement with a geogrid
Avoiding a saturated subgrade is the key to success. This can be achieved by side ditches most cheaply.
A good aggregate will be angular not rounded, and well graded. This means that it contains a range of particle sizes from coarse sand/gravel size up to say 100m max for haul roads of farm roads
Subgrade improvement by the inclusion of a stabilizing geogrid will make an enormous difference to the long term performance and avoid the need for very thick aggregate layers.
The geogrid performs two functions. It allows you to place and compact aggregate over soft ground and then the aggregate interlocks with the geogrid to for a stabilized layer that holds together better under traffic. Take a look at this short video to see what I mean http://www.tensarcorp.com/TriAx/video_sandbox.asp
 
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