Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Road builder......

Trying to determine if I should just plant grass this fall and let mother nature take care of things over the next yr or go ahead and put down some 3/4" gravel for erosion control and aesthetics of course. Also creek gravel might do the same job and be half the price. Any input from experience on what works best long term and most cost effective?

Trying to post some pics but doesn't seem to be taking.....File mngr?

what are you trying to do?

Sorry.....just trying to shape my road that circles the entire lake. Trying to figure out how to post pics here to get a better idea.

How often will you be using the road to drive on? Around here, there are a couple of methods used:

Light traffic - once a day or less - grass

Anything more and it's
1) put down a layer of 1 1/2"-3" stone, let it work it's way into the ground (think of the size stones that they put around the railroad ties). Then put a layer of 3/4" rock with a lot of fines in it.
2) Put down a layer of geotextile fabric, then put down a layer of 3/4" rock with a lot of fines in it.

re: posting pictures. You have to put the picture somewhere on the internet first. Many use Photobucket. Here's information that is in the archives:

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92443#Post92443

It depends a lot on your soil and moisture your area recieves. Also the load that needs to be carried.

For our area if I'm only going to be driving the 4 wheeler over it AB3 is what we use (1" and all smaller fines).

For light traffic like occasional pickup truck or car or even some machinery if it is not frequent we use 2-3" size crushed rock layer with a layer of AB3 over the top after the larger rock has been driven on for a while.

For heavy semi-truck traffic and heavy repeated loads, what esshup says.

It also depends on what the base material is like. If we are just putting rock on top soil, the road will not hold up to heavy traffic as well. If we strip the topsoil down to clay, the road bed holds. But we only have 6-12" of topsoil, so this may not be applicable for other areas.

Here is an old thread you might be interested in.

Limestone rock around pond

I'd recommend using the geotextile fabric no matter what you do.. it's worth its weight in gold I didn't use it on my driveway and I kick mmyself for it every year..

snrub, most of the soil is sand/sugar sand here. No matter what rock base we use, if no geotex is used, it's time to bring in more rock and re-coat the driveway every 4-5 years because the rocks got pushed down into the sand. Some areas it could be 50' deep.........

You're 110% correct in saying it all depends on what the soil base is!