Gravel Driveway Won't Pack

[donohued]

I has a gravel driveway put in at my hunting camp. The problem I have is that the contractor used a sand/small stone mix that will not pack. It is like driving on sand. The car sinks in and you can only get up it with four-wheel drive. The contractor says it will pack over time but it shows no sign of that. Does anybody know if there is something that could be added to make it pack? Thanks for the help.

[Rich]

Any gravel or sand mixture will do little to no good. Straight gravel will only push out to the edges over time also. It should have a good base (4" rip rap) and then filled in with 3/4" gravel.
I doubt it will pack over time. You could add a cement sprinkle over top but probably won't help much.

[grumpydasmurf]

I saw on TOH where they did put in a gravel drive way, but they did a good job at it.

They dug about a foot down, and made a nice even surface and compacted it. Then they put about 4" of sand and compacted that. Then they put about 5-6" of crushed gravel and compacted that. The edges of the driveway were finished off with paver bricks. It looks very professional.

I wondered what the sand was for.

[roger g]

As Rich said, put in lots of big stuff first. Up here we call it pit run which has everything from 4-5 inch rocks, little stones and sand. D rive on that for a while. That's why you see in new constuction a really rough looking driveway with big rocks and the big trucks pack it down during the consttruction and then later on you put the finishing stuff on last.


roger

[Rich]

The method grumpy suggested will work just fine also - as long as the edge pavers are pretty solid. The sand is to fill in the voids between the lower and upper gravel - but for some reason I think you already knew that :)

[grumpydasmurf]

LOL actually I didn't have a clue.

[Rich]

It becomes almost like a concrete mixture.. the sand filling in the gaps between the gravel as it is driven over.

[mreynolds]

We had our drive put in last year is the same way Rodger mentioned. We went down 12 inches, removed all the dirt, layered filter fabric, then got bank run gravel (mix of large and medium sized stones). The weird part is to look at it now, you can't even tell there is a base, but the other day we ran 4 cement mixers over it and two of the were full with no ruts.

[donohued]

Thanks for the tips. I spoke to the contractor last night and he is going to put more gravel on top. There may be too much sand in the mixture he used. There is a base made of slate rubble but there is at least a foot of soft stuff in top.