Early Winter

It's been a couple of months but despite a sudden drop in the temps and what felt like an early winter in the fall, we have been keeping at it. In October, we cut the topsoil away and stacked it aside for later use in landscaping. We did this with the skid loader/digger when we dug the main square for the house foundation. In mid-November we had the first layer of stones out down for the gravel driveway.

We did this because we could--it doesn't matter how cold it is when you're laying stone! Digging the details of the foundation were becoming more difficult, because the ground was beginning to freeze. When it wasn't freezing it was raining. That does make it difficult to lay stone. Our driveway may look level, but to a guy driving 30 tons of stone in a 4-axle truck, it's not a good idea (might get stuck, believe it or not). So our advice is to make sure the subsoil is dry enough. In our case, the guy came out, apologized for not being able to lay the stone, and had to come back days later when it was drier. At least they didn't charge us 2 delivery fees! But be careful to check. I think they didn't because we're amateurs and they should have asked.

What kind of stone?

We asked around and typically there's a base layer of a few inches, called "ballast", and for this we were recommended "#3s"--most stone are 3 inches (many were as much as 5"!). Here's Julie standing on the pile at the base of the driveway. We learned that these are not stones you can move with a shovel and a rake! There was also a pile of stone near the end--because live wires prevented the driver from dumping all the stone out to the end. So this required a non-toothed skid loader to move and spread the remaining stone, an expense we did not anticipate.

Here's the "after" shot. But driving on ballast isn't that great. For that we'd need the next layer. Recommended was #2a or b "modified" which means it contains mostly stones 2" or less, all the way down to "stone dust." We'll have pics of that in the next post.

How much stone? I calculated the length of the driveway (114') multiplied it by the width (12', plus a little wider at the end), by the depth desired (3" or .25 foot), came up with a cubic footage, which I divided by 27 (number of cubic feet in a square yard), and requested that cubic yardage of stone. The quarry converted that to tonnage and the result was perfect. Nothing short or left over.

We have managed to get a little foundation work done. We dug a trench and the rough cuts of the 8 pads that will be poured (when it's warm enough to pour concrete again, >40 deg F). In this photo you can see the trench is roughed in, and the pads are all but finished (by hand, to cut them straight, square and level). Our level reference is out of frame to the right, and is a steel stake driven into the corner of the hole, with a mason's string tied to the point where the pole is at grade. Then we walk a line level out (keep the string tight) and measure down with a tape. In our region, frost depth is 36", so the pad and trench bases need to be at 36" depth from grade.

In the farthest corner, we found we'd dug too deep--and prior to this photo, that corner was a lake after those rains. Without electricity and the generator not working, we had to bail the corner by hand, over 300 gallons if we calculated correctly. Our arms were tired. Here you see what we've done after we filled the muddy hole with subsoil and placed wooden 2x4 skids so we could get the loader in and clean things out.

So between the ballast stone and the mistakes on the foundation depth, that added up to needing an extra day with earth moving equipment. It wasn't super expensive (about $300), but those things add up. We'll try to be more careful.

As you can see, there's water in the pad holes, and the general state of the pit says: "nothing more until the weather improves." That's the other thing: the weather usually won't cooperate with your plans, so be flexible.

We'll post the finished driveway next time. In the meantime, this winter we're making some changes to the final plans, which we'll talk about, and starting the "Hobbit door." (You'll see!)