Rick wrote:

On Thu, 26 May 2005 09:53:32 +0100, "Glenn"
wrote:


Hello all,

We have a long term renovation project in the French alps, vehicular access
is via a 30 metre long grass covered "drive way" which slopes gently upwards
to a height of about 1 metre over the length of the drive. In anything other
than dry weather, car access is entertaining to say the least. The local
council has a dump of gravel not far from us, and it seems to me that one
night we could easily "acquire" enough gravel to lay two lengths of gravel
to aid vehicular access. My question is, should we dig out two parallel and
shallow "ditches" to take the gravel (and if so, how deep should they be?),
or just lay the gravel straight on to the grass and bed it in by driving a
car over it?

Many thanks,

Glenn




Having thought of this a little, it occours to me your drive may be
like my longer (1/3 of a mile) drive. When I got the house, it was
muddy, and we needed 4x4 to get up the drive. A day with an excavator,
and we scraped off the mud to reveal that some hundred or so years
ago, there was a solid rough stone track. With no extra treatment the
track can be driven along in all mut heavy snow or sheet ice.

In my case the mud washes off the fields onto the track, so new stone
would soon get filled with new mud. We remove the worst of the new mud
with the leaves once a year.

One thing I have discovered, is that solid stone and mud is bad, but mud
on gravel washes to the bottom. In practice mud on solid needs a yearly
clean. Mud on gravel will go for many years before it 'fills up' and
needs more gravel..

A lot depends on preference and what equipment you have to hand.

If you can pressure wash, solid is great.



Rick