Trying to estimate time it will take me to build a road

Very green wannabe blade hand here looking for advice.

I have been asked to give a bid to build a road that is just shy of a mile long. The ground is old farm ground, rock free dirt that is covered in prairie grasses/scrub.

The customer would like a road cut out that will allow him to occasionally access his property and that could possibly be covered with stone and used regularly if he decided to build there in the future.

He’d like it to be 22’ wide as that is what the county will require if he decides to build.

I have several hundred hours repairing and maintaining gravel roads and lots with a grader but have never built one this long from scratch. I plan to grub off the vegetation, cut the ditch on either side and windrow the spoils up onto the road, and then use the spoils to build my crown.

What I’m appealing to this great group for is a rough idea of how long would it take YOU to build a 22’ wide, mile long Road with ditches on either side, assuming you were working in good dirt with a 140G size machine.

thanks for any and all advice, I’ll gladly read it. The bid has already been sent and accepted but we don’t start for a month. I’m just curious if this is going to take way longer than I anticipate.

This will be interesting.

A non elevated roadbed is a ditch. The amount of elevation desired will have a dramatic impact on production costs. For me, I'd want a minimum of one foot elevation. I'd also want wide bottomed, gentle sloped drainage on each side.

So, 5,280ft long x 22ft wide x 1ft deep = 116,160 cuft of dirt = 4,302 cuyd of dirt to elevate the roadbed.

Add removing the top soil/vegetation which will be 5,280 x 22 x 4in deep = 1,434 cuyd of material. Plus removing another 1,434 cuyd of material from the borrow area so you are putting clean dirt up on the fill.

Now we have moved 4,302 cuyd of dirt to elevate the roadbed. We have moved 2,868 cuyd of top soil to clear the area. Then we have to reset the top soil in the borrow area which is another 2,868 cuyd.

Grand total of 10,038 cubic yards of material to be moved.

See how this gets huge.

If bidding, I'd shoot high. So I imagine 30 hours to remove top soil. I imagine 70 hours to elevate the roadbed. I imagine 20 hours to shape and pack the roadbed. I imagine 20 hours to reset the top soil. Total 140 hours. The grader should generate a minimum of $100 per hour of work. 140hrs x $100 p/hr = $14,000.

So how much was your bid?

thanks @ovrszd for the response, very good points

ovrszd said:

A non elevated roadbed is a ditch.

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If he decides to build there, the county will require a 12 inch course of 2”- road base base topped with a 6 inch course of 3/4”- road base, so the road would be elevated 18” off of the dirt, thus giving him the elevation needed for the road to sit higher than the rest of the field. This “road” will basically allow him a path across his property during dry months and serve as the base for the gravel road he’ll have to install at a future date when/if he builds there.

ovrszd said:

So how much was your bid?

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very close to your stated price, within $1000. I bid it for 100 hours but at a higher hourly rate for the grader. Because of the fairly loose parameters, an experienced blade hand could probably get it cut and shaped in 40 hours or less, but I’m not an experienced blade hand. Your post was very well thought out and I appreciate you telling me how much time you would budget, that’s my biggest question. I’ll probably start planning on it taking closer to 140 hours.

Was asked to do a job a few years back of building a new road about 3/4 of a mile long, previous road was washed out and eroded over a bank near the ocean, I know conditions and material here are alot different then in New Mexico, but my scenario I had to remove all the sod and top soil to get to a harder and more suitable road bed, in the end I had to use a D6 dozer to pile up the top soil and get it hauled away, it was to much for the 140h were the material was sticky in spots and over a foot thick, I don't recommend using topsoil as part of your road bed, I had to cut a width of 60ft to get my proper road width with ditches and drainage, covered the base with 8"s of 2" then 4"s of class A.

I think the thing to look at on a job like this is drainage. These hypothetical roads don't address what really happens.
Sure you cut ditches. If the water doesn't perfectly infiltrate into the soil it's going to build up and go somewhere.
I'd be walking that whole job and looking at what I'm going to do with the water beyond the edge of that road and include that information in the bid and also what I tell the customer.
I'm going to build a much shorter driveway weekend after next, and that's my whole goal.
I have a rented 20,000 lb dozer coming, I'll be bringing the mini and 45 ft of 12-in culvert pipe, and the laser.
my departure from the existing road will get 25 ft of culvert to make a nice turn in.
I'll use the laser to figure out how to swale the next culvert installation to get the water into and out of the pipe without making a mosquito pond.
That's just my two cents and worth about that but I'd be looking at where the water was going to go after it got in the ditch.

I agree, the water must have a place to go where it won't cause flooding. If there is low rainfall there they might get away with it for a while, but they will probably get called back the first rainstorm.

skyking1 said:

I think the thing to look at on a job like this is drainage. These hypothetical roads don't address what really happens.
Sure you cut ditches. If the water doesn't perfectly infiltrate into the soil it's going to build up and go somewhere.
I'd be walking that whole job and looking at what I'm going to do with the water beyond the edge of that road and include that information in the bid and also what I tell the customer.
I'm going to build a much shorter driveway weekend after next, and that's my whole goal.
I have a rented 20,000 lb dozer coming, I'll be bringing the mini and 45 ft of 12-in culvert pipe, and the laser.
my departure from the existing road will get 25 ft of culvert to make a nice turn in.
I'll use the laser to figure out how to swale the next culvert installation to get the water into and out of the pipe without making a mosquito pond.
That's just my two cents and worth about that but I'd be looking at where the water was going to go after it got in the ditch.

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12” raise of 2” seems odd to me. Sometimes we do a couple inches of 1 1/4” and let that pack in, then 3/4” on top. Honestly, we kind of like to work the 1 1/4” wet once to try and push it in. Otherwise the fines fall out of it and it lays there like popcorn.

Have been delivering and tailgating rock to a farm road, 20t does NOT go far at 4-6" deep x 10' wide, may get 25-30' distance per load spread out/mashed in and then double that as to Two lanes wide. To place our road at a 1/4 mile long pushed off top soil and sod to 8-10" depth, laid 2" minus in that slot and drove it in with the delivery trucks, allowed to be rained on for a few instances then placed 1" minus atop that to 'seal' the 2". Rock does NOT go far.

Using your data, my 5 loads this weekend are going to get me about 150'
We will be doing base course whatever that is, 2" minus would be my preference in this environment.

Thought I’d give a quick update to close this post. I hate posts that trail off without a proper ending…

I had intended to come back here after I had finished the road and report back on how long it had taken me. We were scheduled to start on a Tuesday, customer texts on the Thursday before asking if I could add a bunch of work…at the same price. I apologized but said I’d have to charge more for the extras. Nothing from him, a day or two go by, he finally responds that he’s going with another contractor. Kind of annoying since he’d been on our schedule for about a month. At the same time, he was showing all the signs of being a hard customer to deal with, so maybe it’s for the best. On to the next one I guess

sounds like you dodged a bullet there. There are good customers out there no need to deal with the rotten ones.

It's also possible he didn't have another contractor and was hoping you'd really want/need the work and would call back and offer to include the extra's. Some customers think the price can be negotiated by haggling or should be lower once the job is finished. Some jobs have to be an estimate only as you never know what you're going to run into. Extra work isn't a freebie.

Welder Dave said:

It's also possible he didn't have another contractor and was hoping you'd really want/need the work and would call back and offer to include the extra's. Some customers think the price can be negotiated by haggling or should be lower once the job is finished. Some jobs have to be an estimate only as you never know what you're going to run into. Extra work isn't a freebie.

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I agree, you just don't know what your going to run into doing a job with a machine, the customer has to realize that there will be a cost plus if there is extra work that has to be done to do the job you bided on, you will not know that till you start moving material around what your up against.