On 1 Oct 2006 20:01:38 -0700, "Jack"
wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of anyone creating a driveway made of wood?

For arguments sake, let's say we want try this as an experiment and
we'll be using oak from trees we'll be cutting ourselves. As an
experiment we want to see how long the wood lasts without treating, so
we'll cut the wood and let it dry to what moisture content? What
"ideal" type of wood would you use?

Would (pun inteneded) it be wise to have large planks or small pieces,
such as pavers? There will be expansion/contraction. Can this be
calculated before the wood would be laid?

I know there is going to be at least one person on the planet who will
want to post something negative about this, so, for that person: please
post your reply straight to yourself and not here. Thanks.

Jack

When I was growing up my family had a piece of land along the Little
Kanawa River (West Virginia). It had a couple of creek beds that my
dad built bridges over by setting 4 telephone poles across the creek
(creek was about 4 to 6 feet below the bridge deck) and then planking
them with rough cut oak planks (about 2" thick x 10" wide). Somewhere
along the road he coated them with used motor oil, but when installed
they were fairly green and untreated. I know that they were used for
about 10 years. How long they lasted after that I don't know (this was
almost 40 years ago). A thought would be to excavate the drive deep
enough to lay telephone poles or railroad ties as sleepers and plank
on top so that the "roadway" is not in direct contact with the ground.

Dave Hall