New road. Build up vs dig down?

I am looking for some suggestions regarding a 1200 ft long driveway I am doing. More of a road really. I will be putting the gravel down 18 inches thick +. Underneath the sod is a couple inches of top, then nothing but hard red clay for miles. So I'm wondering, what makes more sense. Dig the sod and clay down 15 + inches so that I have the usual 3-5 inch above grade driveway. Or just strip the sod and thin top soil layer which is hardly 5 inches. Then proceed with my 18 + inches of gravel, which would put the road surface over a foot above the sides? I can top soil the edges so the above grade gravel doesn't constantly fall away. What do you guys think is the easier more sensible way to do this?

We need to know what your winter weather is. If you get lots of drifting snow, then you most defiantly want to build it up, up up. If you have water issue's then you need ditching to flow the water. If these aren't issues,,, than a nice gentle 4inch or so above grade would be a nice road.

If your going to put down 18" of gravel regardless it seems it would be much less work to build it up. What is the downside to having an elevated road?

4 seasons, are you a contractor doing this for someone else, or are you the property owner? Also what part of ny?

Yeah 4seasons .

At 18 " thick gravel for a driveway we would pencil out an estimate for removing top soil & pouring a concrete drive at 4 " thick .

If it were me...

1) I would look at the land and see how the water flowed vs how I wanted it to flow and work out the path NOW, trying to work with gravity as much as possible.

2) I would go down to the clay and level it out at about 6", then install whatever drainage I needed to. If I expected heavy traffic I would go down to 10"

3) It can be argued that getting down to the clay allows to you avoid geotextiles, which are for when you CAN'T get to the clay. I figure, on a new road with a significant capital investment... why not go the extra step? Also, if I have the option, I like see geotextile come up the side of the trench as well. Not two feet out and flapping in the breeze mind you, but up to the point where it's even with the surface level.

4) If I was down 10", I would put down a layer of #2's, then a layer of #311, then a layer of #4 and then a layer of #411, with the #411 rising 2" proud of the surrounding terrain, then top with a layer of #57's. I would compact with a dual-drum vibratory after the #311, the #411 and the #57's. Also, in case it's not clear, I would be using limestone.

5) If I was only down 6", I would start with the #4's, but otherwise follow the same recipe.


Of course, that's only going to add up to about 13 or 14 inches of gravel at the most, but if you're really bound and determined to go the full 16" you can always dig slightly deeper and/or stack slightly higher.

Yair . . . To me, on the other side of the world I find this thread confusing.

We are talking 400yard driveway into a house on an acreage block?

I cannot imagine the conditions that would require such construction as needing eighteen inches of gravel for such a low impact application . . . the main highway out the front of my place has little more than that.

Is there something about snow and freeze/thaw that requires such measures?

Cheers.

Are you in the part of New York thats gets snow and some frost. If the gravel is down 8" or 18" there needs to be a way to channel the water out. We all know how well clay drains. I would build up, let the snow blow off, and not have a frozen pond under the road causing frost heave if you get that cold. Less costly to remove topsoil and gravel then to remove topsoil, dig clay out, and then gravel. Just my 2cents.

Scratching my head....only red clay I know is on the south western border. (Wellsville?) That red dirt makes big dollar black cherry. A lot of foreign buyers show up with soil maps. Usally way up on top of the hills. So I will make a fool of myself and guess that large elevation change and log trucks will be factors in addition to lots of water snow and ice.

Ask the oil guys what to do.

Thanks for the responses. To answer the one question above, this is my property. Definitely not comfortable doing these types of jobs for other people yet. So far I have cut the minimum amount of depth possible in order to level out the base over the 11 ft width that I am doing. This worked out to just sod/soil depth in spots (4 inches) up to 10 inches in areas that had slope to them or humps. I would have really liked to just strip sod and soil and level the base out without removing anymore but I am slowly learning this is dozer work and I only have an excavator. Then I put in 385 yards of shale so far. Shale is only at 6-7 inches depth at this point. Not very nice stuff at all but guys use it a lot around here to get roads built up for cheap.