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Re: Gravel driveway material & labor prices?

To: Mark Andy <mark@sccaprepared.com>
Subject: Re: Gravel driveway material & labor prices?
From: orphancars@direcway.com
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 21:46:20 -0500
Hello Mark,

Good comments from all so far -- I'll add my $0.02, FWIW

Take these data points into your mix as well:

- Down heah in Texas, we use something called road base for
making a "gravel" driveway.  I'm from Ohio, and when I asked 
for quotes for "gravel" for my driveway, I was quickly 
re-educated about this fantastic road-base stuff -- guess my
Yankee was showing! :) Road base is a  
mix of large and small rock, and gets amazingly hard 
once it's watered in.  It's the same stuff that the 
county uses as a foundation for roads here in TX.  I did my own 
over three years ago and it's still solid, no weeds pushing through.

- Depending on how confident you are with tractors and such, 
and how complex an area you need to work, consider renting 
or borrowing a neighbor's tractor and doing it yourself.
Sounds like the worst part of your effort will be scraping off 
the grass where the drive will be.  But Dave C is right -- a
good and helpful dump truck operator will be able to dump the 
material for you so it's less effort for you or your tractor 
operator (ie., dump and drag the material).

- When I did my own drive with roadbase, I got enough material
to recover a 20 x 80 area for under $500 (I think it was more like
$350 ~ 400).  Granted this was to recover an existing gravel, er
roadbase drive, but I think I got the material 6" thick over the 
entire surface.  Check with your county engineer -- in Ohio, you'll 
probably want a thicker surface to survive the winter.

hope this helps -- good luck!

-jeff d
Fort Worth, TX




----- Original Message -----
From: "David C." <cavanadd@kendra.com>
Date: Monday, July 12, 2004 9:11 pm
Subject: Re: Gravel driveway material & labor prices?

> 
> At 02:40 PM 7/12/2004 -0400, Mark Andy wrote:
> >He's willing to do it for time & materials.  Time is $80/hour for 
> labor &
> >machinery.  He recommended Limestone as the material, at ~$12.50/ton,
> >since it ended up being the cheapest (higher per ton cost, but it 
> 'goes>farther' than the other options of mill slag or gravel).






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