Roads, Clay, and Traction

[Radar67]

I have about 700 feet of road going in to my house site. The problem I need to solve is how to get traction on the clay surface when it is wet? I am not through with all the construction aspects, ie phone, drainage, and water well. I do not want to drop a massive amount of cash on gravel because I eventually want to build cobblestone style roads. What does everyone think of spreading a layer of sand over the top of our red clay to help keep traction in wet weather? I figure it would have to be disk in a little. Any other suggestions on material that I could use that won't cost and arm and leg?

[Tom]

Mine was 2000 feet of blue gumbo clay.  The only answer for most vehicles is sand.  You might get a stand of winter rye to take hold and get you by for the winter, if it's for automobiles.

Sand is the ony answer.  Blue gumbo has a lot of sand in it here, so the rain washes out the clay and leaves a layer of sand.  Don't disc it up.  Smooth it and leave it alone. 

The best thing you can do for it is dry it out.  Put some good ditches or swales on the sides and get rid of the water.  If the clay will dry, it will repel a lot of water.  It will take a long rain to get it slick again.

I think I would try the winter rye first.

[Radar67]

Thanks Tom. I had a pretty good stand of rye on it last year, and some of it is coming back up this year. I have decent drainage on most of it too. After a rain, if the wind blows a little, the surface will dry out within a day or so. There are also a couple of spots starting to hold water, due to idiots trying to drive on it in wet conditions. It's time to park the trailer at the creek crossing again to end that. The No Trespassing signs don't seem to be working.

[pigman]

....a couple of spots starting to hold water, due to idiots trying to drive on it in wet conditions.

Now Terry, don't be so hard on yourself.

[Radar67]

I'll take a little of the blame on that, but the tractor is not as hard on the ground as an electrical service truck.  It's pretty bad when the tractor will hardly navigate it though.

[pineywoods]

 When I was just a kid, we lived on top of one of them big old red clay hills. Used to pray for rain, because the school bus couldn't get up the hill, so we didn't have to go to school. There's still dirt/clay roads around here, but the road crews have found a very good solution. If you can find it, low grade iron ore (the lower the grade the better) works very well. Gravel don't work, the rocks just mash down in the muck. Radar, I do hope you aren't cursed with yazoo clay. Mississippi has spent millions trying to devise a way to build roads across the stuff.

[ErikC]

  I have built and worked on quite a few driveways in clay. We have kind of an adobe for the most part, and some red clay that's really sticky. Either get soft enough in the winter to suck you down. I have had the best luck with pit run rock that's 3" minus, and on steeper sections shale that may resemble piney's iron ore. It works better on the hills because it won't roll out as much. It has to be this big for the first layer or the clay will just eat it right up. The idea is an interlocking bed that will distribute the vehicle's weight. Then a layer of regular roadbase can help smooth that out after it is packed down. I have done this a number of times and turned soggy messes into hard solid roads. If there are ruts and holes, don't grade it first. Just fill them in with rock, and sometimes in a bad area I have even pitched in a bunch of football and softball sized stuff by hand first. It takes more rock, but you only have to do it one time this way. If you grade out a rut, then rock over that soft fill you just graded, pretty soon you'll have another rut, and all that mud will be on top of your new rock.  For an access that is seldom used you might get away with regular sand or roadbase, on a 700 foot driveway it would need at least 7 or 8 loads to evenly cover the ground a 1-2 inches deep. More would be nice. I bet it's going to come down to bigger rock sooner or later though.

[John Mc]

Here in the Champlain Valley of VT, we get a lot of clay. The successful roads I've seen in some of the more challenging situations start by doing everything they can to get water away from the roadbed... not just "off the road" (though that helps), but at least a few feet away from the shoulder as well. They then go to the 3" rock as Eric C describes. Some use that as their road surface for years, since it gives great traction. It is harder on tires, however. Eventually, most finish it off with a good layer of 3/4" or 1/2" crusher run (what lots of peope here just refer to as "road gravel") It has lots fines in it which help lock the larger chunks together.

Often, people will lay down a layer of geo-textile fabric over the clay before building up the road. This will let the water through, but not the clay, so the road stays stable much longer. It helps keep the rock and gravel from getting pounded down into the clay, which causes the clay to ooze up to the surface.

[coldnorth]

In a few weeks it will be frozen, then just throw some wood ashes on and good-to-go!  oh----wait MS may be a bit different..... 

[bull]

for a temporary road over clay, i have use 1 foot of wood chip it will stanup to quit a bit..... but for a good drive I would dig out a couple feet ot the clay drop in a foot of first blast,or feild stone, 6 inches of 6 inch minus and 6 inches of 4 in minus!!! Let that set up for about 6 months and then finish with 4 inches of dense grade. Will cost a few bucks but makes a good roadbed

[ErikC]

   Digging out in clay is not always a good idea. The dug area is a canal, and will stay wet too long. Better to build several inches of rock above grade, so the water will go away from the roadbed. This is my experience anyway.

[WDH]

Terry,

Daylighting the road is critical.  By that I mean a cleared right-of-way that is wide enough for the sun to get to the road bed to dry it out after a rain.  I agree with Tom that sand is good, and do not try to disc it in.  Like Piney says, iron ore is wonderful stuff as it is a coarse red sand with pea gravel sized iron-ore pebbles.  We use a bunch of that stuff on forest roads.

The most important aspect is to get the water off the road which means a good crown and a good system of wing ditches to divert the water away from the road.  When the water sits on the road in low spots or in ruts, you are sunk, literally.  Some broad-based dips, which are low broad berms, that are slightly angled to the perpendicular along with an associated wing ditch to move the water off the road and distribute it onto the surrounding land is critical if you have slope.  There are formulas that indicate the distance between the broad based dips/wing ditches based on slope. 

[Radar67]

The road has plenty of daylight. This is what it looks like. This was a few years ago.



It hasn't rained in a few days and I had the road smoothed back out. I have also compacted the clay in the area where ruts were dugout by driving my tractor and truck on them. It is currently navigable in two wheel drive. I have a couple of spots I will need at add fill, in order to keep the water from standing. I had a good crown and drainage on it before the power company came in. You've walked this road Danny.

Eventually, I want to lay down the rock base ,3 to 4 inch material, then come back over with 2 inch rock and eventually a sand base for the cobblestone to rest on.

[WDH]

That sounds like a good plan.  A road has to settle and mature before surfacing to give the bet results, so with your plan, you should be good to go if you can keep the power company trucks off it  .

[Tom]

A 700 foot long cobblestone road?   Man, You have ambitions.

If I cobblestoned my driveway, they would tax me as having it paved.

[Radar67]

Yes, I am ambitious, just didn't say I was gonna lay it all at once. 

[Don K]

Terry, if you ever get a firm pack on it and get the opportunity to buy loads of the asphalt they grind off the hwy. before repaving, get it. It packs like asphalt. I missed the chance to buy a 18 wheel dump trailer for 200 bucks. My driveway washing would cease.

Don

[Jasperfield]

Radar,

WATCH the weather and get your road (swales, drainage, etc.,) into finish graded condition. Install filter fabric by hand labor, using your laborers.

EARLY on the next day...personally direct gravel trucks to spread road-bond (NOT washed gravel or sand) onto the covered prepared surface.

Carefully, roll or track agregate into place.

You've got to separate the agregate from the soil (be it sand or otherwise). The filter fabric does this.

Don't waste money or time on temporary "fixes". AND don't yield to temptation to do so.

Jasperfield

[fishpharmer]

Terry, I have used rock on my pond levees.  Seems that putting down an even layer looks good for a while. When it gets wet the rock is pressed down into the clay on the tire track area.  The rock on the other, non track areas, stays loose on the surface.  The final result seems to be the rutting and potholing of the levee surface.  I try to keep a pile of rock handy and go around with the front end loader and fill in the pothole spots periodically.  Also, try to stay off the wet levees but sometimes I must move fish on rainy days, with heavy equipment and trucks. 

One of the neatest road maintenance tools I have seen is made by several folks under several names, yet the one I think of first is Bionic Blade.  It looks something like a box blade.  But it doesn't collect material in a box.  It does more of a "fluffing" up of the rock on a road and smoothing the low spots. It has high flat sides and two cutting edges in different spots between the sides. The front and back are open.  I hear they are great for maintaining a gravel road once you have established a crown.

Hope that adds a little to all the great input you already got.

[Tom]

I like the part about .......

..... using your laborers.