New Driveway

[Darren Wright]

I stopped this morning and picked up two 18" x 12' culverts and a band for joining them end to end. One of the guys with a backhoe I called a few days back happened to also respond this morning and had time to come look at what needs to be done. He'll be starting tomorrow morning to install the culvert and also clear out the current ditch.


Yellow is the new driveway, which happens to be where the original driveway started, but due to flooding of the garage a berm and ditch was added to divert water down the hill further. The Blue line is the location the culvert will be installed in the ditch. The red "X" is where the current driveway is and will be closed off, it's just too tight of a turn for any trailers and most cars bottom out going over the little berm coming in that way.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

Yellow is the new driveway, which happens to be where the original driveway started, but due to flooding of the garage a berm and ditch was added to divert water down the hill further. The Blue line is the location the culvert will be installed in the ditch. The red "X" is where the current driveway is and will be closed off, it's just too tight of a turn for any trailers and most cars bottom out going over the little berm coming in that way.
View attachment 118418

OK - I'm not seeing it. The red "X" marks the old drive which looks like a straight shot to the house. The yellow line looks like it winds around like a nature trail but that one is easier for trailers?

 

[Ted Calver]

Have you given any thought to connecting the two driveways so you have a U shape with two entrances. Be nice to be able to drive in and out without a lot of backing up. Another section of culvert on the main road would straighten up the new entrance too.

 

[Darren Wright]

OK - I'm not seeing it. The red "X" marks the old drive which looks like a straight shot to the house. The yellow line looks like it winds around like a nature trail but that one is easier for trailers?

Yeah, I’ll have to take some pics to show why.

Directly across from the current drive is a wall of hill that goes up and up. To the left is a large tree with the telephone junction box for the area right next to it. Trying to remove the tree and roots will most likely destroy the phone line cable below it, the neighbors would not be happy. The hump in the current drive way needs to stay and be even taller to direct heavy rain water flowing down the hill to the ditch behind the berm

So if you imagine pulling a f250 crew cab and a 26’ travel trailer down a road with trees down each side the width of a two lane parking lot drive and try to turn that into a single parking stall without hitting the cars in the next stalls. That is pretty much the current driveway.

The yellow line goes around the 4’ high berm that keeps the flood water from going towards the garage. We also only come and go from the one side of the drive to/from town. The other direction on the road heads to a dead end. So the yellow line heads to the road in the direction the trailers need to be pointing and they will come in the right way.

 

[Darren Wright]

So here are a few pics.

The approach to the current drive. It is wide enough for me to get my truck with the 10’ flatbed through, but the trailer usually is sitting at a steep angle with one tire going across the berm, so tall loads may not fare well. I bent both sides of the cargo trailers rock guard under going across that little bump too, so not good for low clearance trailers.


This is the view looking out the current drive, showing the trees, telephone junction box, and hill on the opposite side. The large berm starts where the fence post is on the right side of the current driveway.


This is looking up from the new culverts location

 

[Ryan Mooney]

In truth the current "drive" isn't much of a drive anyway more of a narrow spot in the trees

I'm assuming you're going to get a few truckloads of 3/4 minus to surface some of it while you're at it?

 

[Darren Wright]

In truth the current "drive" isn't much of a drive anyway more of a narrow spot in the trees

I'm assuming you're going to get a few truckloads of 3/4 minus to surface some of it while you're at it?

Exactly. We are going to get some 3/4 or crusher run to pack in, but I want to re-grade in front of the garage and work on a site pad for the RV/Shop area prior to adding too much. The soil here is mostly rocky, so other than defining the drive and parking area, it's not really needed.

 

[Brent Dowell]

I'm guessing your driveway is going to be a step up from the 'road', lol.

 

[Darren Wright]

I'm guessing your driveway is going to be a step up from the 'road', lol.

They do grade them at least once per year. I'll be doing them from time to time with a box blade to fix the washboarding they leave behind.

 

[Jim DeLaney]

They do grade them at least once per year. I'll be doing them from time to time with a box blade to fix the washboarding they leave behind.

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[Darren Wright]

We’ll, I can’t complain too much, he was here about 5 1/2 hours and got the ditches cleared out and the culvert buried.

We will have to wait for the dirt fill on the culvert to dry out before using it. There’s a constant stream of water in that ditch from the spring behind the barn and the dredged dirt was used for the fill.



Next up is finding a dump truck to hire for gravel. I’ll also go get some larger rocks from the creek to line around the ends of the culvert to help prevent washout.

 

[Brent Dowell]

That's looking pretty good. Man you're getting some work done there!

 

[Bill Satko]

That's looking pretty good. Man you're getting some work done there!

You sure are! But I am not surprised. What's the minimum cover required for that size and thickness of corrugated pipe to accommodate traffic loads, 12 inches? Worried at all about that dump truck making it across once it firms up?

 

[Darren Wright]

You sure are! But I am not surprised. What's the minimum cover required for that size and thickness of corrugated pipe to accommodate traffic loads, 12 inches? Worried at all about that dump truck making it across once it firms up?

From what I’ve read, it’s at least half the diameter of the tube. So at least 9 inches for this one, he got around 10” and will then have the gravel on top of that.

 

[Ted Calver]

When you place the rocks around the ends, make sure you place some heavy big flat ones on the bottom of the ditch for a couple of feet out from the outlet end. This will help prevent scour. Had this happen to my driveway culvert, even though the drop was only a couple of inches.