Asphalt for long, steep, rural driveway
I'm hoping for some advice from someone who has experience with asphalt. I live in rural KY and have a long, steep gravel driveway. It's been in place for ~10 years so the ground is well compacted. I am going to get it paved and based on what I've read having a solid base for the asphalt seems to be most important.
Due to flooding this year, my drive way now has quite a few LARGE long ruts in it, like 4-6" deep in places running down the length of the driveway. I asked both asphalt guys what their process is and they both use a skid steer to grade the driveway and will use dirt and dense grade gravel to fill in the ruts and smooth out the surface before laying the asphalt.
Is this normal practice? should I be concerned? Is there a minimum amount of gravel that should be under the asphalt even if the ground is solid?
Also, one guy priced it at $22,000 (10'wide / 3"thick compacted).
The other guy was $12,500 (10'wide / 2" thick after compacted). Big price difference. Both seem reputable, post their work on facebook, etc.
Posted Aug 15, 2018, 8:14 PM UTC
There absolutely should be no dirt used in the grading process. Is there currently gravel there?
If it's a decent gravel drive, we would grade and fill in where necessary with 617 Limestone. (3/8 diameter down to dust) 617 will choke in like concrete. My whole drive is made out of it. I regularly back the quad axle in here loaded.
We would then roll it, check grade and adjust as necessary and roll again.
I wouldn't do 2 inches, do 3. Make sure they are putting it in 2 1.5 inch lifts and rolling it between each lift.
If you aren't concerned about initial appearance have them use all base material. It will be stronger, it just won't have that finished look to it. You can always seal it. Once it's seal a couple times you won't be able to tell it's all base material.
You really want to see how good their work is, ask for a list of 8-10 year old drives, go look at those and talk to the owners.
The impression I got from the one guy was that during the grading process w the skid steer, the dirt/gravel from the crown would help fill in the ruts. he would then lay dense grade gravel and then asphalt. Are you saying the dirt that is scraped from the crown should be discarded somewhere else?
It's hard to say without actually seeing the driveway. If it's more stone then dirt I would say it's ok. What is he calling dense grade gravel? By definition all gravel is dense. But you wouldn't use #57 limestone under it, that's for building drainage ditches.
Tell them both you want to see some of their old work. I can show you drives the company I work for put in 20 years ago, you wouldn't think they were more than 4 or 5 years old.
Here's some pics: https://imgur.com/a/7uFwkdK
I would say it's more gravel than dirt. "dense grade" must be a regional term here. It's what everyone calls fine gravel that is mixed with a lot of rock dust.
I have another question. Would you pitch the Asphalt at an angle so water would run to the side? Or since it's a fairly steep hill would you just let water roll down the hill?
Thanks for the info. I have requested to look at old jobs as well.
That's not to bad, add some stone and grade it off. I would grade some 617 into the whole thing. There isn't a lot of fines in what you have there to choke it in.
As for pitch, The majority of it can run down to the road in your area. You don't have much of winter. Here in Ohio we would probably run it down the road and pick a few spots to run it off to the side. That way you don't have as much water accumulating on the road. Talk to your contractor about it. In that situation, he will know best for your area.