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Sinking Bus
or how not to do culverts. Well, I got the bus into the barn but it was touch and go. Almost got stuck. All my fault of course. I installed two culverts across the access roads to the barn. Rented the excavator on a very rainy/wet day, had 2 feet of standing water in the ditch when I tried to put in the plastic culvert. Of course it floated :). Pushed it down with dirt. What a mess.
Anyway, I have been compacting and adding gravel over the culverts but it remains soft. Particularly, the front wheels of the bus sink. I have put on two dump truck loads of 3/4- gravel and have been using a compactor. But the surface does not hold up to the bus weight.
With the bus (safely?) in the barn it won’t leave until I fix the culvert situation. Any advice on how to firm up the ground?
Options I’m contemplating are (1) wetting the gravel down well and compacting again, (2) pouring bags of concrete/cement on top and wetting it down, (3) putting on broken pieces of asphalt in the top layer, (4) ripping the whole thing out and starting over when the ground is dry (say end of August). No bus rides till then, (5) adding 4 large steel road plates over the soft spots ($4-5k) but I have no easy way of moving the 1″ plates, or (6) just seal up the barn and make it a Prevost shrine.
Has anybody been in a similar situation?
Thanks, Gerald
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8 Replies
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What you describe for a new gravel drive is from my experience, normal.
The new loose, eventhough compacted mix, needs to settle in, dry out and be more compacted by traffic.
Give it a chance for a couple of months. Possibly you should have used fist size gravel. I look at 3/4″ as top dressing for a compacted drive.
Remember, “No is the right answer, Yes means more work.”
JIM
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The base material can be three inch recycled concrete or any wedge shaped large aggregate. It needs to be wedgy so it locks when you use a vibratory plate compactor on it. Washed gravel ie. round anything is not what you want. So this is your base maybe a foot deep.
Next you can put down a foot of number nine crushed limestone. This is a mixture of one inch with fines (dust) that compacts very tight. It is typical driveway gravel in our area (upper midwest). Compact every four inches of lift for the stone.
I defer to someone else on how you get here from where you are at.
The above is what I did to put in a paver driveway, and has been compatible with the weight of our bus.
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Another option is do concrete over the culverts. If you span the concrete beyond the culvert you are effectively building a bridge. Pour 6″+ of 4000 psi concrete and place rebar in the direction of travel such that it is placed near and under the path of your tires.
I too have heard the gravel should start big and not round to smaller gravel near the top. The final coat of gravel could be mix that includes cement and limestone. I forget what its called.
FWIW, this is not an area of expertise for me. I didn’t stay at thge Holiday Inn Express, but I have seen this done on a few occassions.
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Gerald
I think what is happening is your gravel is sinking in to our NW dirt, more gravel and weight the deeper it sinks. You may want to put down some of that gravel cloth to keep it from sinking. I see a lot of logging roads with colverts but they general don’t distrub the base layer. If they fix a washout they put in tons of large rocks and work up with samaller. You might try scraping it down to the bottom of the colvert and dump a lot of bags of cement to hold the base together.
Greg
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I may have to redo the culverts once it completely dries out. Having the plastic ADS culverts float in water was not the time to do it. Live and learn.
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It might be such you want to begin again. Culvert should be layed in gravel and then backfilled with gravel to level it and secure it in place also. Then top it with coarse stone and then a mix as described above.
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When I had to put in culverts to my barn I also had to lay a new path to the barn, I a friend told me about a product that the the road crews have come up with. When they strip a streach of highway (you know the rig with the big conveyer belt leading to a dump truck) they will mix this ground up asphalt with an oil product. It spreads like sand or gravel and this stuff GETS HARD. So hard that when I needed to run an electric line I was not able to dig into it, and it actually took a neighbor with a back hoe a very long time at that. Cannot remember if it has an official name, but you could start by checking with local sand/gravel distributors. The top never “sets up” like asphalt, but rather stays a bit crumbly and dusty…but it never moves or collapses.
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Asphalt millings. I have run many a ton thru that type of machine..Bob
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