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Looking at a house with a 500 ft long gravel driveway


luberhill
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Our driveway is 800 feet and was gravel up until 5 years ago (have lived here 14 years)...  

a gravel driveway is a constant WIP..   some of it has to do with drainage and what your soils is like (ours is pretty flat and very sandy soil)..  we spent a lot of money over the years on stone and then had got a good deal on having it paved (we got the 800 feet and a decent sized parking area by our barn done for $27k 5 years ago)..   

I will just say that life is a lot easier for us now that it is paved (although I don’t like the $1200 sealing bill every other year)..

not sure if this helps you or not but just sharing our perspective..

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Wildcat said:

Our driveway is 800 feet and was gravel up until 5 years ago (have lived here 14 years)...  

a gravel driveway is a constant WIP..   some of it has to do with drainage and what your soils is like (ours is pretty flat and very sandy soil)..  we spent a lot of money over the years on stone and then had got a good deal on having it paved (we got the 800 feet and a decent sized parking area by our barn done for $27k 5 years ago)..   

I will just say that life is a lot easier for us now that it is paved (although I don’t like the $1200 sealing bill every other year)..

not sure if this helps you or not but just sharing our perspective..

 

 

Yea I know it’s going be work and expensive to blacktop 

They want 450 for the house and 45 acres ..

It has oil heat which I don’t like , no ac ,I like the land but don’t know if I want to sink 500k after everything into a house 

Probably better off waiting for some thing else

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Is it loose gravel or packed? Mine is (not 500') packed gravel. I have a snow blower on the tractor. I just tilt it back until there is a good base. A $2500 snow blower is $25K less than paving. To me the issue would be how much of a slope is on the driveway. Plowed or blown you will probably end up with packed snow that will turn to ice. Not fun driving on then!

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Mine is 700 from the road to my shop. All uphill, the first 150' is the steepest.  I had a spreader for my 3pt hitch on my tractor,  but its a open station, and I hated it. 

I've got my own plow on my truck. Bought a used buyers saltdog TGS07 this fall and love it.  I've run straight wet sand through it, but it will clog even with the vibrator on. Works great with a 50/50 salt sand mix.

My nephews has a tri axle dump, so I get crusher run for cast plus fuel.  Going to fabric my drive, and put 4" of crusher on top. But I need to cut the edges down so the drive is higher than the sides. 

 

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41 minutes ago, mowin said:

Mine is 700 from the road to my shop. All uphill, the first 150' is the steepest.  I had a spreader for my 3pt hitch on my tractor,  but its a open station, and I hated it. 

I've got my own plow on my truck. Bought a used buyers saltdog TGS07 this fall and love it.  I've run straight wet sand through it, but it will clog even with the vibrator on. Works great with a 50/50 salt sand mix.

My nephews has a tri axle dump, so I get crusher run for cast plus fuel.  Going to fabric my drive, and put 4" of crusher on top. But I need to cut the edges down so the drive is higher than the sides. 

 

Do u buy bags ?

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13 minutes ago, luberhill said:

Do u buy bags ?

I bought a pallet of salt. Nephew has pile of sand for a few private roads he sands. I put two bags of salt in the spreader, than shovel some sand and mix it as I add more sand. I might add another bag of salt if needed.  Got lazy last couple of storms, and filled the hopper with wet sand from his pile. Was a PITA trying to find unfrozen sand, lol.  It worked with the sand, but I kept getting the jamed error code even with the vibrator on constantly. I Would have to spin the spreader plate by hand to get it freed up. 

I think it would work great with bagged sand, as long as its kept dry. 

Edited by mowin
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10 hours ago, mowin said:

I bought a pallet of salt. Nephew has pile of sand for a few private roads he sands. I put two bags of salt in the spreader, than shovel some sand and mix it as I add more sand. I might add another bag of salt if needed.  Got lazy last couple of storms, and filled the hopper with wet sand from his pile. Was a PITA trying to find unfrozen sand, lol.  It worked with the sand, but I kept getting the jamed error code even with the vibrator on constantly. I Would have to spin the spreader plate by hand to get it freed up. 

I think it would work great with bagged sand, as long as its kept dry. 

Where do u buy pallets of salt 

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A friend of mine has a fairly big gravel driveway. After buying stone every spring for years a couple years ago he bought what i believe are called millings. I would have to find out where he got them. Its what they tear up from roads and driveways. It ends up packing together and becomes almost like a paved driveway with the heat of the summer an it being driven on. Obviously not nice like a pave job but it has bound together nicely and he hasn't messed with since. I have no idea what the cost was, i am sure it is more than stone but he thinks it was well worth it....

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26 minutes ago, ApexerER said:

After buying stone every spring for years a couple years ago he bought what i believe are called millings.

Millings are a great choice but very hard to come by unless you know someone or work for a highway dept.:o

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Millings are a great choice but very hard to come by unless you know someone or work for a highway dept.
Give the highway department a call....they are always looks for a place to dump. You may have to pay a fuel fee....but way cheaper than getting stone delivered.

Sent from my SM-A716V using Tapatalk

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Mine is 690 ft long, I plow it . The key is plow it before you drive on it with out using skid plates bottom of plow.  and buy a York rake to bring stone back into it in spring.  27 years and only issue I had was on year it was  driven on multiple  times and packed so it turns to ice. Did that one year.. never again. I  simply get up and plow when it needs to be.  

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3 minutes ago, luberhill said:

I’m upstate between Syracuse and Rochester 

I was asking Chef.  His post mentioned he sells pallets of salt.  But depending on where he is it wouldn't be cost effective.  

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