This is the street that leads to my driveway. It is completely gravel/rock. The town won’t do anything about it, and when it rains it tracks into my driveway and sticks to my car.
Is it as easy as throwing more gravel/rock to fill it in?
What would be a longer term solution?
Thank you in advance!
by dingermagoo
11 Comments
Drive through it really fast and splash all the water out. Or, less fun, put more gravel. Ideally the underlying hard packed dirt would be built up with a crown to shed water to the sides.
A flat shovel and heavy rake wheel barrel. Move the gravel from the sides and fill in the hole easy
Make sure it’s road gravel with fines and you compact it when placed.
Looks like you could use the extra on your driveway
A proper long-term solution would be a large dump truck load of #57 gravel. The truck driver can spread it reasonably well, but you’ll have several hours of raking and wheelbarrowing to do to fill in the potholes. That’s expensive as heck, though.
Determine who’s responsible for the roads. If it’s the town, raise a bigger stink at town meetings. If it’s a state or county highway department, start hounding them.
Regardless who’s responsible for the roads, they have motor graders to reshape that road for better drainage, and they have cheaper contracts on buying gravel from local quarries than what you do. They also have the responsibility to maintain the roads, which they obviously are not doing.
Proper grading and fines (small rocks) of about 3″, then a heavy roller to compact it..
In my Ex-Gf’s neighborhood the town said the resident would have to pay to have the roads paved.
The real solution is to churn it up with a box blade with the tines pretty far engaged and then rerock. Then groom/crown and possibly compact. However, since its not your property . . .
Its compacted and the just filling the depressions is a very temp fix. Any rock you put down needs to be incorporated with with existing and there is zero chance anything you do by hand is worthwhile. This ground looks harder than coffin nails due to compaction, fines and clay.
You can do exactly what I suggested on your driveway – and then have at least 2″ of #53/#8 mix (far better for drainage than just #53) spread dumped. that will allow most of the mud/clay to wash away when it rains. Your drive looks like it needs a bunch of work. Too bad you are not near me, two fav thing to do on the tractor is brush hog an box blade so I would do it for diesel and beer.
Go rent a dingo with a power rake. Use the rake to break up the surface layer and spread it evenly.
It looks like your yard and driveway runs downward into your yard. The obvious first choice, if possible, is to build up your yard and driveway higher so water runs away and not toward your yard and driveway. If that is not possible, the first way would be to build a berm across the front of your yard and driveway even if you have to drive over a bump.
I would build up left side, which is your yard portion, I’m guessing. I’d make a creative mound where you make it decorative: anything from rocks, flowers, a tree, etc. That solves that part. For the driveway, instead of a harsh bump, I’d make a big gradual mound that goes higher as you meet the road and then drops kind of gradually to meet the road, keeping the water on the road.
I don’t think there is any other choice, it can look fine and you’re done with it.
The very first priority with roadways and driveways is proper drainage. If the water can’t run off the road it will always be a problem. I prefer to crown them so the water runs off both sides. Sometimes that’s not possible without a ton of grade work like across the road in this photo the big hump blocking any water from running into the ditch off the road. Ideally that hump across the road would be removed and the road built up with a crown so water runs off the road both directions. If that hump is not taken out you could possibly shape the road so it all runs toward your side of the road. Or just haul in a shit load of gravel to build it up over that hump. BTW those humps on the side of the road is probably years or decades of gravel being pushed to the outside edge of the road. It could probably be mixed in a base rock to build up the road. Might have a little grass in it but that won’t hurt anything at the bottom.
There were a couple roads like this in my old neighborhood. We were in the middle of the city too. A bunch of us from throughout the neighborhood got together and did almost exactly what u/20PoundHammer suggested.
Legally, it was a grey-zone. The roads were classified as “unimproved” and “unmaintained” by the city. Cops were called, they just shrugged and said be safe and put someone in high-vis to help direct traffic. City was called (probably by the same person who called the cops) and tried to stop us, but couldn’t find anything in the code strictly preventing us from repairing the road. The county was also called, but they just shrugged and said, not our road-not our problem.
In the end, about 20 of us repaired around 4 blocks of road mostly by hand.
I can see a gradual slope from your neighbors house back to you. Even if they were to pave this road, any dirt and debris will slowly wash into your driveway. The only real way to fix this is to have the end of your driveway higher and direct water away. If it were me I would remove about 8 ft of concrete and put an apron made out of screened limestone so water can go into the ground.