We've got a 400' rock/gravel driveway.

Driveway was on the land for a long time, we've had a house built and the traffic has messed it up.

We had a few loads of crushed concrete down and after the first rain it's back to slop.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

Did the new house impact water flow? Might need to see how water runs now and divert it away?

Nagler said:

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We've got a 400' rock/gravel driveway.

Driveway was on the land for a long time, we've had a house built and the traffic has messed it up.

We had a few loads of crushed concrete down and after the first rain it's back to slop.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

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Provide us some pictures, please OP, as well as what part of the world you're living in. This will help with your advice.

A new Jeep may be about the price of doing the driveway right. I traded in my F-150 grocery getter for one after getting stuck in two such driveways. Greatly prefer. Just sayin'.

Had similar prob. Similar length driveway.

Once construction traffic was done, I had a guy come in with some quality base and regrade the road with a nice crown to keep water from running on the road. That took care of the mud, but caliche dust wasn't my friend in dry spells. So I pulled out the checkbook for chip seal drive. No final seal coat, just a 2 course seal and chip.

No more mud
No more dust

Looks good too, IMO.

At minimum I'd get 60 yards of caliche.

Iirc, op is in Crosby. Possibly on a former rice field. Tikka had good advice- regrade and crown the existing driveway. The next and most important step in that area is to stabilize the base with lime. Then add more material.

A good contractor would be best to bring in a mixer or rotovator and the lime. 3 b services in Huffman maybe.

What color rock did you use?

Are there actually colors of caliche besides light grey and lighter grey (white-ish)?

A chip driveway has rock imbedded in the asphalt. So depending on the rock you can have a grey, white, black red road etc.

White

My bad. I didn't know you were referencing the chip seal.

Big gravel/rock, then a layer of medium, then smaller gravel to top it off.

That makes a good looking road. Much better than the blackstar gravel I think. I saw a red one in Round Top. No idea where they got that much red rock anywhere close to Round Top.

1. Get your drainage correct. No matter what you do, if your drainage isn't done properly, you will have problems

2. As somebody above pointed out, odds are you need to get your subgrade stabilized. Pull your existing caliche off, lime and grade with compaction. Then add your caliche back on

3. Add caliche as necessary to get a good crown, make sure it is compacted in and watered while it is being installed.

I'd concrete as far as you can afford, then finish as your $'s allow.

I just poured 80 yards of driveway and won't worry about it for another 35 years. (Replaced the original 35 year old driveway).

Since you just built the house, do it right the first time.

Just my $.02.

You should also compare price using the true grid pavers. They have a light product made for residential. Extremely low maintenance. Pervious so low impact and you won't be taxed on any hardscape.

https://www.truegridpaver.com/

mrad85 said:

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I'd concrete as far as you can afford, then finish as your $'s allow.

I just poured 80 yards of driveway and won't worry about it for another 35 years. (Replaced the original 35 year old driveway).

Since you just built the house, do it right the first time.

Just my $.02.

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Good on you. A foundation contractor told me that concrete was increasing in price by $8 per yard on Mar 1st. Rebar also costing him 15-20% more.

Cen-Tex said:

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mrad85 said:

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I'd concrete as far as you can afford, then finish as your $'s allow.

I just poured 80 yards of driveway and won't worry about it for another 35 years. (Replaced the original 35 year old driveway).

Since you just built the house, do it right the first time.

Just my $.02.

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Good on you. A foundation contractor told me that concrete was increasing in price by $8 per yard on Mar 1st. Rebar also costing him 15-20% more.

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I agree, it's not the cheapest option, but it won't be getting any cheaper, nothing will for the near future at least.
How long do you really think it will take till he's paying to have more dirt work on his road and how many times vs the life of concrete?
That's why I prefaced it with what he could afford. I'd at least get some estimates.

I've lived on my own gravel road for 30+ years. Bought some old railroad bed gravel. Actually got stuck on it when it was brand new road. I can sympathize.

When the road gets dry enough to box blade, get several sacks of hydrated lime, McCoy's sells it cheap.
Put that on top and blade it in.
For routine maintenance work, dump half a sack in each mud hole or rut before filling it.
It will " kill" the mud hole.
I switched to crushed concrete for repair work.

As said earlier the road needs good drainage. Don't blade the road flat, keep a high crown in the center.

Lime is caustic so wear gloves, stay upwind , wear goggles, and it will dry out leather boots so I wear rubber boots.

Op must be stuck in his driveway.

I'm back. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Located in Crosby in what was a rice field a long time ago but has been a hay pasture forever with a good driveway until the construction.

We did quite a bit of concrete to in front of the house but couldn't pull the trigger on another 500' of driveway plus having to redo the entry way into the property. Maybe some time down the line.

Went out there today and it's a sloppy mess. Talked with the contractor and they're going to regrade when it dries out but I think we'll be in this same situation after the next big rain.

Looks like I'm going to try to get some lime in the soil to hold it up temporarily. Figure I could get a box blade as suggested and mix the lime in as we go.

Not sure if we're going to try some bigger rock and see if that will hold but I don't rather not have to keep getting truckloads of rock for it just to disappear into the muck.

I've also had some crushed asphalt suggestions.

Does anyone have any suggestions on contactors in the area that mess with this kind of driveway?

I see Triple B mentioned above but they're pretty big into TxDOT work not sure they're going to want to mess with one driveway. I'd rather get this sorted out once and spend a little money to have it done right than have to jack with this after every rain storm.

Make sure you don't get any type of round gravel. It just squashes out of the way. Needs to have flat sides to lock together better.

Base should be big rock like 3-5" stuff, then 1-2" on top of that, then the crushed on top of that. The big stuff will settle in the soil and spread load without moving and give the smaller stuff above a solid foundation. The small stuff smooths out and grooms much better, of course.

You can put in base but there is "ok" and "better" grades of base that will perform better. Honestly, I think you can spend a lot of money having to graded and crowned but you can also have a shart ton of gravel/rock brought in and go with that. 350 bucks for a semi load where I am. My driveway growing up was river rock … gravel and cobbles….it's still the same today 50 years later.

Just depends on how good and nice you want it. I prefer the cheaper gravel options myself for appearance.

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For routine maintenance work, dump half a sack in each mud hole or rut before filling it.
It will " kill" the mud hole.

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Interesting, on a scale from 1-10, how effective of a hole killer is this? I've been fighting mud holes for years on our drive

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No idea where they got that much red rock anywhere close to Round Top.

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My guess…it's Round Top. Folks will pay out the nose to build there. So some trucking expense for the "right" color was prob well within the budget.

But yes. I agree. The white chip looks nice. Grays out within the first few months. Pretty bright at install.