On Monday, July 1, 2013 8:19:18 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 30/06/2013 21:41, Gazz wrote:





"Nightjar" wrote in message

...

On 30/06/2013 18:17, MrWeld wrote:

A relative has about 80m² of gravelled areas around their house. Over

the years, the gravel has become very muddy, and is now coverered with

weeds.



Is there a cost effective way of washing gravel? I've tried putting it

in a handheld steel sieve sloshing it around in wheelbarrow of water,

but that was very slow, and generated large quantities of muddy water..



I suppose I could just put a membrane on top of it, followed by more

gravel, but I'd like to re-use the existing stuff.





You don't need to wash it. Simply use a sieve with a mesh size

slightly smaller than the gravel and sieve the dirt out. It is time

consuming and you will end up with a surprisingly large pile of dirt,

but it works.



somewhere like machine mart sold a rotary sieve thingy, something stupid

like 200 squids, and something that could possibly be knocked up fairly

easily.



It was a cylinder of mesh, i think it had a metal spider at one end, to

which it attached to the frame via a bearing, a motor to the side drove

it around like a cement mixer, cylinder on an incline... bung a shovel

full of mixed crap in the open end, it's rotated around and the muck

drops thru the mesh into a barrow below, and the good stuff falls out

the back in a separate heap.



Wonder if someone could make up a sieve barrel or a cement mixer, just

pop the cement mixing barrel off, pop the sieve cylinder on, away you go.



Possibly easier to make a long chute with a mesh base and send the

gravel down that. For most people, probably easier to store for next

time too. It is a job that needs to be done every few years.



Colin Bignell

Am I being stupid but surely if it was spread out over a path/drive the rain would wash it eventually assuming the crap had been raked out of it, and its going to need raked to get it level anyway.