About New Hampshire Rock Supply and a Catalogue Built for Ledge

The question that arrives most often is the address of the yard, so start there. There is no yard to back a pickup into. New Hampshire Rock Supply sells bulk aggregate online, by the ton or by the yard, and delivery is arranged at checkout from the ZIP code you enter. Nobody loads a trailer here.

What is worth explaining instead is why the list of twenty-four materials looks the way it does. It is not a national list with a state name stamped on it.

Two base materials, because frost and ledge leave no third option

Stony glacial till with granite close to grade is the default ground in most towns. Frost runs about 48 inches in the south and 60 or more in the North Country, deeper than anything a driveway crew will ever excavate.

So the base under a drive, a camp road or a shed pad has one job: spread the load, shed water out of the wheel track, and lift evenly in the thaw.

That is crushed gravel at one inch minus, the material an engineer writes up as NHDOT Item 304.3, and crusher run at 3/4 inch minus where a tighter, finer pack is wanted. Item numbers are how material is specified locally. They are not a certification held here.

Over the top go driveway gravel and walkway gravel, the layers that actually take traffic and get topped up.

Six clean stone grades, because mud season decides everything

The reason the stone list runs from 3/8 inch chips up through railroad ballast is drainage, and the reason drainage matters here is timing. Thawed ground holds water above soil that is still frozen. Add summer downpours and coastal storms on the Seacoast and the trench work never really stops.

Clean stone with no fines in it is what keeps water moving: #57 stone, #67 stone, 3/4 inch crushed stone and drain rock for trenches, drywells, foundation runs and culvert bottoms. #4 crushed stone and railroad ballast carry the heavy end of that range.

Loam is the local word, and it is bought screened

Topsoil is loam in this state, and nobody wants it unscreened out of stony till. The catalogue carries screened loam for the top four to six inches under seed or sod, garden soil blended for raised beds, and fill dirt for the bulk of a low spot or a raised grade.

Three materials, three depths, three different jobs. Keeping them apart is most of the value of the soil section.

Stone dust and pea stone, named the way a job site names them

New England sets flagstone and pavers on stone dust, not on bedding sand alone. It is on the list under that name for that reason.

Pea stone is the same story: the 3/8 inch rounded stone that goes on walks, in play areas and around drain lines. People here say pea stone far more often than pea gravel, so that is what it is called.

Armor stone, because banks move in the thaw

Spring runoff scours stream banks, ice jams work on river banks in the north, lake banks lose ground at high water, and nor'easters push at the Seacoast shoreline.

RipRap and large river rock exist on the list for that work, usually laid in layers over a geotextile fabric, which is not sold here and is worth sourcing from a local landscape supplier before the stone arrives. Sizing an armored bank on a moving watercourse is an engineer's call, not a catalogue's.

What this operation can tell you, and what it cannot

It can tell you a size, a grading, a type, and an approximate weight per cubic yard for every material on the list. The calculators turn your measurements into cubic yards and tons using those same weights.

It cannot tell you what is under your particular lane without a bar pushed into it, and it cannot rule on a town's footing depth or a shoreline permit. The building official and a local engineer own those answers.

Everything else starts on the materials list, runs through a quantity, and ends at a delivery date you choose at checkout.

Is there a yard where I can pick material up myself?

How do I know a product here matches what my contractor specified?

Can someone help me pick between two materials before I order?

Do you deliver to camp roads and rural lanes?