Driveway Gravel for Camp Roads and Rural Drives

The calendar decides this job before the material does. Frost leaves a drive in late March or April down south and weeks later up in the hills, the surface goes soft for a stretch, and stone laid into that disappears into it.

Wait until the lane has dried and firmed. Then order driveway gravel.

It is 3/4 inch crushed stone in a graded mix of sizes, sold here as Driveway Gravel, and it is the course you drive on. Something compacted has to be underneath it.

The lane that went to washboard over one winter

The usual order follows a winter of plowing. The blade takes the crown off a little at a time, throws stone into the shoulder grass, and by April the wheel tracks sit two inches lower than the middle.

Water then stands in those tracks instead of running off them. A rut that holds water gets deeper every time a vehicle crosses it wet.

A surfacing course puts the shape back. It fills the tracks, rebuilds the crown, and gives tires something that locks rather than something that shifts.

What it will not do is rescue a drive with no base under it. If the ruts return within a season, the trouble is below the gravel.

Driveway gravel on till, ledge and river-valley sand

Stony glacial till with hardpan beneath it drains slowly. In mud season the thawed few inches hold water above ground that is still frozen, and a load spread onto that ends up mixed into it rather than sitting on it.

Ledge does the opposite. Where granite is close to grade there is nothing to dig into, so the drive is built up instead, and the edges have to shed water hard. A ledge shelf with poor edge grading becomes a basin that holds every drop.

Sand and gravel outwash along the Merrimack and the Souhegan is kinder ground. It drains on its own, and a surfacing course usually keeps its shape there with less underneath it.

Lifts, moisture and the crown that sheds water

Order of work on a re-topped lane:

1. Rake or blade the existing surface back toward the middle first. Do not bury a rut, fill it.
2. Spread in lifts of two to three inches. A single thick lift stays loose in the middle.
3. Build a crown of roughly a quarter inch of fall per foot across the width.
4. Damp beats dry. The fines need moisture to lock around the larger stone.
5. Pack each lift. A roller, a plate compactor on a small pad, or a loaded vehicle driven in overlapping passes across the full width.
6. Open the ditch line last, so the water you shed has somewhere to go.

Stone spread bone dry in August rides loose until the first real rain packs it for you, badly.

What a gravel drive asks for each April

Walk it after the thaw. Look at the crown first, then the edges.

Stone thrown into the grass comes back with a rake or a box blade, and there is usually more of it out there than you expect. One pass with a blade in spring is worth more than an extra load in summer.

Potholes want their sides broken down before new material goes in. Tipping stone into a smooth-walled hole gives you a patch that lifts out whole inside a month.

Set the plow shoes high enough that the blade rides above the surface next winter, and mark the edges before the snow arrives.

Yardage for a 22 by 26 turnaround, a foundation drain and a soft low spot

Three hypothetical jobs on one property. Driveway gravel runs about 2,800 lb per cubic yard on this site's published figures, near enough to 1.40 tons per yard.

Turnaround, 22 ft by 26 ft, 4 inches of surfacing

• 22 x 26 = 572 sq ft
• 572 x 4 / 12 = 190.7 cu ft
• 190.7 / 27 = 7.06 cu yd
• 7.06 x 1.40 = 9.9 tons, order 10

French drain along 60 ft of foundation, trench 18 inches wide and 24 inches deep

• 60 x 1.5 = 90 sq ft in plan
• 90 x 2 = 180 cu ft
• 180 / 27 = 6.67 cu yd

That trench does not take driveway gravel. The fines in a graded mix silt the voids closed. Use a washed clean stone such as #57 Stone, wrapped in fabric.

Low spot beside the drive, 15 ft by 18 ft, averaging 3 inches

• 15 x 18 = 270 sq ft
• 270 x 3 / 12 = 67.5 cu ft
• 67.5 / 27 = 2.5 cu yd
• 2.5 x 1.40 = 3.5 tons

If that low spot is going back to lawn rather than staying trafficked, lift it with fill and finish with screened loam instead.

Check any of these against the gravel calculator, which carries the depth guides for this material.

Booking a load onto a lane that is still soft

Pick the quantity and the delivery date on this page. Delivery is arranged at checkout from your ZIP code.

Before the day, settle where the truck tips. It wants firm ground, room to back and clear height to raise a body, and on a camp road low branches stop more deliveries than mud does.

If the lane is still greasy, have the pile dropped near the town road and move it in with a bucket. A buried tandem costs more than the extra handling.

Still weighing this against a compacting base material? Read the crushed gravel page, or send the question to New Hampshire Rock Supply through the contact form before you set a quantity.