Putting in an 800' driveway through the forest, advice and tips needed.

Piston · August 15, 2011, 11:55:13 PM

I don't know if this is the right spot for this, but hoping some people can chime in and give me some advice. ;D

I have a roughly 800' driveway to put in for our future home. The land was logged in the '70's and left unmaintained since then. There are a lot of pines as you can see from the pics, and some hardwoods. most trees are small, barely sawlogs. Many of the hardwoods are just saplings (small to large) so there is a good mix of trees in there but nothing overly large.

From the reading I've done, I've come up with a basic plan.

Design a driveway that takes advantage of the natural openings in the land, although there aren't too many 'openings' just some areas with less trees.

Go in with a backhoe and knock down all the trees that are in my future driveway, uprooting them in the process, then pile them off to the side....I plan on cutting the stumps off, limbing them, and saving any decent pines for my portable sawmill, and saving any hardwoods over 4" for firewood.
I'm not sure yet if I will have the brush mulched, or if I will burn it.

Then go though with my 46hp tractor and boxblade, with the scarifiers all the way down, and loosen up the soil down to 5" (the lowest my scarifiers go).
THEN, come back with the backhoe and dig up that 5" of top soil for the whole length of the driveway.
After that, I'll see if the remaining soil looks more like gravel, or more like soft organic topsoil still, and if it's still topsoil, I'll repeat loosening the soil down another few inches, and remove more soil again.

From there, I guess I'm not really sure what to do. Is there any chance that I could get lucky by digging out the topsoil and be left with decent gravel? And not have to add more gravel to the driveway?

I was thinking of instead of making a crown in the driveway to shed water, I would put a 4% slope in the entire driveway, following the natural contour of the land and have the water shed down the side of the driveway, which would be to the north in the pic. (north up)

What do you think of this plan? My equipment is a John Deere 410B 2wd backhoe, and Kubota L4610 with FEL and grapple, a heavy duty box blade with hydraulic scarifiers, and a Woods rotary mower for the smaller saplings. The tires are filled on the tractor and it weighs 5500lbs, 4wd. The grapple will be a lifesaver in itself.

How long do you think it would take to put in a rough driveway like this? 2 days, a week, 2 weeks? or longer?

If I have to add a bunch of gravel to the driveway when I'm done, I plan on putting down geotextile fabric first, and laying down the gravel over that.

The driveway will be approximately 800-850 feet long. I put in 10' contours on the map, there is a block with 2' contours where the house will be.

I'm looking for opinions or advice and tips from all you pros to make my job a little easier. I've put two different driveway routes on the map, The blue one will have slightly more elevation change but will go past some interesting features in the land, and also be easier since the woods are a lot thinner there.
The red one will be less elevation change, straighter, but doesn't seem 'natural' with the land, because I will have to take out so many pines.

I have a lot of time on my hands and want to do the driveway rough work myself, I don't mind getting help when I need it and if that is the case I will rethink my plan, but I want to take advantage of the equipment I have, and improve my skills using that equipment.
The land is in the lakes region of NH where we get a decent amount of snow. It is on the north side of a mountain but not so far down to where I won't get sun in the winter. It just won't be beating on the driveway.

Thoughts? Opinions? Criticisms?

snowstorm · August 16, 2011, 07:08:17 AM

cut all the wood brush everything and drag it elsewere and limb it . do not just wack over with the hoe. asfar as using a 410 it will work but not well . i traded my backhoe for a new excavator 20 yrs ago. dont put any sharp turns in the rd. on up hill follow the contour . coulverts you will need some at least 12" 18" is better ditiching keep the water out of the rd. for a 12' rd clear 24'. if that part of nh is anything this part of me you wont find much gravel on site there will be lots of rocks. as far as saving the loam unless you rent a screen it may not be worth it. stumps what are you doing with them? how big? depending on the size of the stumps the grade may drop a ft or more after pulling them. rought the rd in with whats there but if its to be a year round rd you will need gravel. to do it right it could take as much as a 1000 yds. dont know what the price is down there but i would guess at least 10.00 a yd......good luck

Raider Bill · August 16, 2011, 08:00:37 AM

Where are your power lines coming in? If along the driveway you may need more side clearance. I needed 30 feet, 15 on each side for power.
One thing I did wrong is I didn't use big enough gravel for my base. Mine was 1" should have used at least twice that size.

thecfarm · August 16, 2011, 08:09:22 AM

I'm sure no expect,but I do know,if you dig a stump out,it seems to last forever out of the ground. I leave it in the ground it will rot away in 5-8 years. I can understand why you want them out of the ground because of the driveway. If I made a driveway out through my woods like the way you want to,it would be quite a mess.I would take a few trees at a time and cut them down in the driveway,not off to the side and deal with the wood and haul it down the driveway,than dig out the stumps,if you want too.Even if you dug out the stumps,I would think there would still be alot of roots from smaller trees and from the trees on the side of the driveway,that the box scraper would have a hard time with.I'm not even going to mention the rocks that I would find on my land. I've seen the pile rocks on your land. I can not believe the farmers before you got them all. ;) You will have to haul in something no matter what. You HAVE to have the driveway above the ground. I have a 500 foot driveway so I know this.The higher the better. What about power? Cost me about $10 a foot to get it here. But that varies even on the next road over. Depends on who own the poles,ROW and more.Could just pay for the power yourself.I know of a guy that did that,but he is an electrician too.I have no idea the cost of it. When he feels he needs to trim the lines,he calls up the power company,they shut the power off to his road and he starts trimming.I thought about under ground. Kinda wished I would off,looks better,but the at least $10,000 kinda made my mind up. But only one tree is close to the lines.

snowstorm · August 16, 2011, 08:56:57 AM

been in the dirt bizz for the last 25 yrs. it isnt a big job but it can be expensive. are you living there yr round? or just a camp? if its just a camp road you can pull the stumps turn them upside down put them rite back in the same hole. cover it with what you pull out of the ditichs. i have built miles of woods roads that way. works fine if you need to do it on the cheap. but you must let it dry before using it and an excavator will be a 100 years ahead of a backhoe. underground power often times is cheaper than in the air. if putting in a phone line it cant be in the same conduit as the power it must be in its own.

isawlogs · August 16, 2011, 12:09:54 PM

Like CFarm said , you need get the driveway above ground and have ditches for the water to get away. If you don't gravel it the mud in the spring will get you something bad. Get some pit run material if you can, it should have a variaty of sizes of sand/stone, I use it for the first layer and once that is packed down and formed into a road top you can get finer material to finish the job.

Piston · August 16, 2011, 04:22:15 PM

Snowstorm,
Are you saying it's better to just cut the tree down, and dig the stump out later, than it is to knock it down with the backhoe? The trees are mostly less than 14" DBH or so (this is going by memory) but the trees that size are fairly scattered, for the most part it is smaller trees. I was going to pile the stumps away from the driveway, in the middle of what will eventually be field/lawn (eventually meaning years away) and burn them down the road.
We will be living there permanently once we are finished building. I know an excavator would work a lot better but buying one isn't in the cards right now so I'll rent one if needed, but I don't believe I 'need' one, I know it would work a lot better though. My opinion may change as I start the work :D

RaiderBill,
The power will come from the road directly to the house. We haven't made a decision on what we will do yet as it will depend partially on the cost difference, but we are looking into underground power and would rather that. It will also depend on the digging. Not sure yet if we'll go along the driveway with it or in a straight line, again that will depend on cost as well.

We hope to eventually clear out quite a few of the trees, not right next to the road (to allow privacy from the road) but maybe a few hundred feet in, and then clear and thin out a lot of trees along the driveway in the 'yard'. This would be undertaken after moving there full time.
One of our problems is that we live 2.5 hrs away now. We are thinking about renting a house in the area while we are having this new one built. I will be having contractors do the work for the house but I will do a lot of the site work, although not by myself. I figure I can start working on the driveway in the mean time and if I don't get it done by the time we're ready to put in a foundation, then I may hire the rest out.

This is all still in the planning stage and nothing is concrete yet. We still need to have the land surveyed and put in our name. I'm waiting for the estimate from the surveyor right now.

red · August 16, 2011, 04:45:35 PM

whn will dig the foundation

red · August 16, 2011, 05:00:51 PM

who

snowstorm · August 16, 2011, 05:09:46 PM

yes cut the wood dont just push it over. pull the wood limbs an all limb it somewhere else. if its just brush then dig it out stumps brush an all. the less limbs brush ect on the ground the better. ditich put the dirt in the road dust it off [level] that will make your subgrade but remember some day it will be graveled so dont make it too high or narrow or real sharp turns. i have seen sevral cement trucks well drillers stuck trying to get into some of the goat paths that they called roads. dont forget someone will have to plow it in the winter. sometimes that has to be factored in. pics would really help. when you build the house lots of glass pointed south

snowstorm · August 16, 2011, 05:19:51 PM

as for burning the stumps....good luck. i have seen some try most times it dosent work well. in maine a stump is hazardess waste after its dug out. you can bury it on site but you cant bury it on soneelese land. hauling to a landfill is unbeliveablely expensive.

red · August 16, 2011, 05:36:10 PM

checkout www.cjohnhebert.com he is a very talented master woodworker click on the bottom of the page where it says my place he built a small cabin to stay in while he built a cedar cabin look how much stone he had to bring in it is worth the look thru all his posts

ouachita · August 16, 2011, 05:51:23 PM

You also need to pay attention to the curves. You want to make the driveway wide enough that you can get a fire truck to your house. I have gone through this with several forestry clients. One needed to get a greyhound type bus to campsites, the other had to get enough clearance for the fire codes in the area. The greyhound bus problem needed a tree surgeon to come in and remove branches.

It's not enough to get the clearing at ground level. You also have to have enough height clearance as well. Think ahead to all the types of service trucks that will servicing your house......propane, garbage, fire, dump trucks, delivery trucks of all sizes.

Charles Westmoreland CF, RF
Arkansas Registered Forester #1041

Piston · August 16, 2011, 06:15:04 PM

As far as burning the stumps, if that doesn't work, or depending on my mood that day ;D I may end up either burying them away from the house site, or dumping them in the back woods. Most likely not just dumping them because I don't want skunks and porcupines living there forever. I have dug some pretty large stumps out of the yard I have now in my current home, and they were absolute beasts, took forever to pull out and had monsterous root systems. I've also taken down some smaller trees in my back yard and those stumps were easy to pop out. The trees on the land are more like the smaller stumps I've dug out in the past.

That is a great idea to take the dirt from digging the drainage and deposit it on the road. Since it would still be 'not ideal' subsoil, I imagine it would be best to put the driveway fabric over that dirt rather than under? Makes more sense to me that way.
I intend to have a rather wide area cleared for the driveway. I met with the road agent from the town and he filled me in on the code requirements for fire trucks. I will use those standards as an absolute minimum and widen the trees/brush from there.

I wish I had some more pics of the driveway area. All the pics I have are mostly of either rock piles or the brook in the back of the property. I'll see if I have any pics that show similar tree growth as where the driveway will be, If not, I'll take a few pics when I go up there in the next couple weeks. I'll also line the area I intend to put in the driveway with some ribbon.

Raider Bill · August 16, 2011, 06:36:09 PM

The drive I put in is a bit over a 1/4 mile. In my opinion I cleared too much out on one side. Actually way too much but in my defense I was on a bull dozer and having a blast! I just couldn't stop myself. ;D ;D 8) Must be a city boy thing.....

Underground wire would have cost about .50 a ft more but I would have had to dig the ditch and supply the pipe which put the price out of my reach at the time. Still actually. I did underground from the nearest pole to my house 250'. We were the last property on that particular power co's area. The guy I sold 4 acres too is another Power Co and they did his underground at no additional cost.

:( Just my luck.

I wish I was only 2.5 hours away. It's 11 hours and 614 miles.

I wish I had used bigger rock I have watched a lot of it either wash away or be smashed into the ground.

Piston · August 16, 2011, 06:48:01 PM

Bill,
You made me feel like it's just down the road! ;D Now I can't complain at all!

Did you use fabric for your drive? I've read some interesting articles about how the fabric helps keep the driveway material from 'sinking' down into the subsoil beneath it. I'm gonna give it a try for the cost.

bill m · August 16, 2011, 06:49:22 PM

Dig out your drive at least a foot deep, put fabric down and fill with a 5" minus material and top with driveway mix or processed gravel. Do not use bank run. Over time frost will bring the large stones to the surface and cause problems. That is what is happening to my drive. It may cost more up front but it will give you a drive that will last a lifetime and upkeep will be a minimum.

Piston · August 16, 2011, 07:06:00 PM

I checked and I don't have any decent pics to show what the land is like. I'll get some next time up.

OntarioAl · August 16, 2011, 08:11:17 PM

Piston
I have extensive experience in road layout and construction and you have been offered some excellant advise if I may I will summarise.
1/ Cut the trees and skid them off to a site that you can process them into logs, firewood, and the limbs (piled to be burnt, buried or hauled off)
2/ dig the stumps out if it is only an access road to a seasonal camp turn them upside down as previously stated otherwise remove them did a pit and bury them.
3/ use the material excavated for diching to build the subgrade of your road
4/ depending on the slope channel your ditches off into the timber and that may mean several culverts to let the water flow to the low side and disapate into the timber
5/By all means use the fabric over your subgrade it acts like a big snowshoe spreading the vehicle load preventing rutting and saving the $$$ gravel
I have floated roads over 12 ft of muskeg using the fabric.
6/ Bit the bullet and bury your electrical service it may not be that much more expensive that poles but your maintainence cost in the future will be next to nothing(think ice storm for one example)
I buried mine up here and it the local utility will asdvise you on exactly what is required.
I hope this helps
Al Raman RPF

snowstorm · August 16, 2011, 08:26:38 PM

the reason farbic is used is to keep subgrade from mixing with the gravel on wet ground. in wet spots it can save on gravel costs. on the 5" minis its great but it costs more. we call it tailings. it comes off the screen when screening gravel. bank run is fine if its mostly under 5 or 6". the rocks will punch down when its pushed over with a dozer. the more its pushed the better it packs do it in 8 to 10" lifts start at the road and work your way in that way the trucks are backing in over it packing it. you will find the weak spots that need a little more. when your house is built everything that needs a big truck to get in there. thats the time to surface it. 4to 6" of screened gravel 1" then calcisum keeps the dust down binds it together

Piston · August 16, 2011, 09:15:11 PM

Thanks for the great advice guys ;D
I've learned a lot so far and know I have a lot more to learn. I'm also reading through a 100pg booklet put out by the state of maine on gravel roads.
I appreciate all the good info and tips and tricks. Keep them coming if you have more. ;D

I have to ask, because to an unexperienced driveway builder like myself, why do you cut the trees down and THEN dig the stumps out? Rather than just knocking them over? Most of the trees are going to be light enough for me to drag (even carry for the smaller ones) over to my landing site, where I could limb the tree, drag it to the next station, top it for firewood, drag it to the next station, cut the stump off leaving the sawlog, and then drag the stump to the stump pile? All at once. I'm curious why it's better to do the extra work of cutting it down, and then the time consuming task of digging out all the stumps? I'm not questioning I'm just trying to learn. ;)

bill m · August 16, 2011, 10:11:39 PM

The 5" minus product I was referring to is made at a local stone quarry and it costs less than processed gravel. It is made from crushed stone and has everything from dust up to 5". It compacts better than bank run or processed gravel. Tailings are the stone that has been screened out of processed and has no fines in it.

John Mc · August 16, 2011, 10:33:54 PM

If you are thinking of going underground, keep in mind that there is probably a limit to how long a run they can pull the cable through. The straighter your run, the more they can push the limit. We pulled ours 600 feet in a fairly straight line fro the last pole, then placed the transformer at the end. From there we split running 300+ feet to one house, and 300 feet to our neighbors. We could not have done the 900 ft total run (with a 90 degree bend) to our house in one pull, but with the transformer, we had an excuse to break it up into two pulls.

My neighbor is pretty handy with heavy equipment and had access to an excavator from work, which made it more affordable. He dug the ditch, ran the PVC conduit and strung a light line through it as he went. Power company used the line to pull a rope through, then pulled the cable back through.

Piston · August 16, 2011, 11:06:22 PM

Quote from: bill m on August 16, 2011, 10:11:39 PM
The 5" minus product I was referring to is made at a local stone quarry and it costs less than processed gravel. It is made from crushed stone and has everything from dust up to 5". It compacts better than bank run or processed gravel. Tailings are the stone that has been screened out of processed and has no fines in it.

Thanks for explaining that Bill, the gravel 'terminology' is confusing to me, such as bank run or #2 something or other, or fines and those terms.

Piston · August 16, 2011, 11:08:51 PM

Quote from: John Mc on August 16, 2011, 10:33:54 PM
If you are thinking of going underground, keep in mind that there is probably a limit to how long a run they can pull the cable through. The straighter your run, the more they can push the limit. We pulled ours 600 feet in a fairly straight line fro the last pole, then placed the transformer at the end. From there we split running 300+ feet to one house, and 300 feet to our neighbors. We could not have done the 900 ft total run (with a 90 degree bend) to our house in one pull, but with the transformer, we had an excuse to break it up into two pulls.

My neighbor is pretty handy with heavy equipment and had access to an excavator from work, which made it more affordable. He dug the ditch, ran the PVC conduit and strung a light line through it as he went. Power company used the line to pull a rope through, then pulled the cable back through.

Thanks John, I definitely prefer going the underground route, and as long as it isn't something like twice the price of running power poles, then I think I will certainly do it. That is good to know about the length of run they can pull cable through. I have no idea what NH's rules are for running cable underground, or how much it may cost. I haven't priced that yet and also have not been in touch with the power company. I'm hoping to get some info in the next couple weeks when i get up there. You guys are helping a lot though.