Gravel driveway stabilization

Started in the rant section. 

End of the driveway where it meets the asphalt is mud. Again. I put 8 wheelbarrow loads of gravel in the fall out there 

I know that the three months of rain, and the heavy turn around traffic aren't helping. (Dead end street. At my driveway). Also the wife and girlscout moms leave the driveway faster than i think they should, but that argument falls on deaf ears.

So, with the slope, 14 inch drain pipe underneath that runs to the creek, and heavy traffic, what are my options?

Cheaper is WAY better. Id love to pave it, but thats not in the budget at this time.

The rants thread suggested a stabilization grid, and it looks like a $400 maybe. 

My tbought was to dump about 10 bags of concrete over fresh gravel and water the E36 M3 out of it to make something like a tar and gravel road for the first 10 feet of driveway.

Im open to suggestions!

Pictures of the problem below. If more pictures are needed, just ask and ill go take them.

What kind of a base is there? We started with a triaxle of #2’s about 6-8” thick and topped off with #53’s. Our driveway is better than the gravel road we live on. 

That looks like a speed based behavioral problem to me.  The gravel is still there, just pushed off to the side.

I would also suggest the gravel is too coarse.  It can't really stay where its placed if it doesn't get pushed into the base.

Modified works much better than gravel. We have a modified driveway for 5 years and it needs very little annual maintenance. I plow it, drive the skidsteer on/across it constantly and have delivery truck turn around all the time. The key that I’ve found is compaction. 

I’d use gravel then mix in stone dust/crusher run whatever it is then compact the poop out of it. 

Looks like this is effectively 2a modified. 

I would start by making the ditch deeper on the uphill side, can you get a picture of the culvert on the uphill side?

How about “slow the berkeley down before you turn in!”

I think you need to dig down to make a base if you just have dirt that close to the surface 

I was looking at using something like this to deal with the trouble spots on my driveway.

You could also try quarry process, wet it, then compact it. It gets pretty hard and as long as there's good drainage stays that way.

I can't imagine a thin layer of concrete holding up well to vehicle traffic for very long, but I do think that you're on the right track.

They make resins specifically for this sort of thing.

But they may not be any cheaper than your grid stabilizer products

Could you just spray some tar over that section of the drive to try and lock the stones together?

Molasses even?

Your gravel is too small and it's not deep enough.  Get 1 1/2" rock

I disagree it's a speed issue. I say that because I am frequently coming into my driveway sideways..... It's a lack of prep/base. You shouldn't be seeing dirt an inch below the gravel. You should be seeing more gravel/larger gravel of the base. 6-8" if you live in the frost belt and see significant rain. You'll still get rutting no matter what you do because of the angle on entry, but it won't be dirt. My folks have a similar issue with the turn in ruts, but because we laid it almost 8" thick 25 years ago, its just a matter of regrading the moved rock. 

I'd dig down about 6 inches and put down geotech fabric and recover it with the nice gravel you have on the rest of your driveway.

Could be super cheap if you have some construction friends with a small piece left over

As the gravel I my driveway is pushing 10 feet deep now, I'm going to be a dissenting voice. 

You have that nice drainage ditch it looks like along the road. Find out if that is your responsibility or the township. If it's the township, your new part time job is harassing them to get it fixed. If it's yours.... 

Dig it out. Level or even below the ditch that runs along the road. Then you want BIG fist size rocks, a topping of "dust"or "fines" depending on local dialect, a French drain pipe going down the hill, more bigs topped with fines, then the cover with what the rest of the driveway is covered with. Compact every layer, but be gentle about it around the drain pipe.

 you'll still need to top it off again after the rainy season or a bunch of traffic, but it should hold good for a bunch of years.

that grate stuff from the rant thread just looks like an easy way to waste a few thousand bucks. 

If you look at the pattern of gavel loss, it appears to me that the major source of the problem is the ditch on the side of the road.  It fills up, and then it just flows into the driveway and onto the road, taking the top layer of gravel with it.

Is there a pipe that is supposed to drain that under your driveway?  Seems like there should be one....

The house I had with my ex had a long, steep gravel driveway.

We did "road bed" which will be different depending on your geography, but it is a mix of multiple sizes ranging from stone dust up to 2B or so.  Then we had a load of grated asphalt dropped off and used a skid steer to push it around and mix it.  We then used the skid steer to compact it, but we would have been better off with a steamroller or plate compacter.

It wasn't perfect, but the grated asphalt is sticky and (because my ex batted her eyelashes) the road gratings were free.  The whole mix stayed pretty stable for a few years.  My mistake was not putting a bed of 2B down first.  The whole hill is one big spring that constantly leeches water.  If I had enough 2B under it, it would have drained under, but instead it kept pushing through and eroding.

I think, given the pattern of gravel spray, that any loose aggregate surface is gonna give you problems.  I'd call some asphalt companies and see what they offer on the cheap (they can cut a deal sometimes when things are slow) and the same with concrete company.  If you do your own prep and finish work you can get 4 yards of concrete for super cheap.  Then stop futsing with gravel that clearly doesn't want to stay there.

What about a mixture of crushed limestone and gravel?  It seem's to get concrete'ish with pressure and moisture.  Also cheap albeit dusty until it beds in.  

Dig it down some so its lower than the road

Smaller gravel 

speed bump 

Drive my buck truck over it to compact down. 

Opening up the culvert and putting up a drawbridge should slow them down...

So, called the city. Waiting for a return call there.

I also looked at the base. Its dirt and gravel the whole way to the pipe. Pipe is maybe 6-8 inches down. 

Ive never seen water running over the end, but ive never stood there in a heavy rain and watched, either.

Again, having them slow down is a losing battle. Been trying for YEARS. 

Heres pictures as requested

SPEED BUMPS

culvert and drain pipe. 

base

I had an aggregate/cement mix placed in front of my garage about 5 years ago, and it’s holding up well. There was a pavement renovation project going on nearby, where they were grinding off the top 2 inches of so of the old pavement in preparation for new asphalt. The result was a large amount of roughly 3/4 to 1” nuggets of old pavement, which were mixed about 50/50 with gravel, then mixed with cement. This was placed, tamped, watered, then tamped again. It isn’t  rigid like poured concrete, but it hangs together far better than just gravel. My snow plough blade will take some of it off, but 5 years later it’s still very much intact. One caveat is that because it’s in front of the garage, there’s no lateral or acceleration force being applied to it, so not strictly comparable to your situation. I also don’t know how much cement was added to the mix. When it was being placed, the mix was noticeably dusty, but nowhere near like a concrete mix.