Driveway Gravel: What Is in the Pile and When It Should Go Down

Push a boot into a fresh heap of this and you feel two things at once: hard angular pieces up around 3/4 inch that refuse to roll away, and a lot of smaller stuff packed in between them. That mix is what the spec means by a graded mix of stone sizes. It is crushed stone, so the faces are broken rather than worn smooth, and broken faces are what keep a drive from moving under a tire.

The pile also tells you what this is not. There is no stone dust holding it together the way a base material has, and no big open voids the way a drainage stone has. It is a wearing course.

The stretch of the year when a drive can actually be resurfaced

Timing is half the job in this state.

• Work starts once the thaw is finished and the ground under the drive has drained. Laying stone on a subgrade that is still soft buries it.
• Class II state highways carry spring weight restrictions from around early March into May, and county, town and village roads can be posted too, so loads travel on the same calendar you do.
• Early summer through fall is the wide-open window. The material spreads and packs while the ground beneath is firm.
• Late fall is the last honest chance. Once the ground freezes, nothing compacts, and stone spread on frozen ground rides loose until spring.
• North of the Wisconsin River and along the Lake Superior shore, frost leaves later, so that opening arrives later as well.

Shaping and draining before the load arrives

• Cut back sod and loose organic material along the edges so new stone is not sitting on turf.
• Blade out ruts and potholes first. Filling a hole without opening it up just gives the hole a new lid.
• Set the crown or cross slope before anything is delivered. Water that cannot leave the surface will find its way into the base.
• Clear the ditch line and the culvert ends. A drive that cannot drain sideways ruts no matter how good the stone is.
• On the tight lake clays through the Fox Valley and around Green Bay, expect the subgrade to need a compacted layer below the surfacing. On Central Sands outwash it usually does not.

Aprons, pads and bed cover: where 3/4 inch surfacing goes

• Residential drives, turnarounds and the apron where the lane meets the road. The graded mix packs down tight enough to stay put under braking and turning.
• Farm lanes and rural access roads carrying equipment, trailers and repeat traffic through the seasons.
• The shoulder strip where a drive crosses a culvert, holding the edge and keeping the ditch from cutting in.
• Pads for a shed, a garage or equipment parking, over a properly prepared and compacted layer beneath.
• Low-water planting beds and rock gardens, where the angular gray texture holds a shape that rounded stone does not.

Water still moves down through the surface rather than sitting on it, which is the behavior you want on a drive in a wet spring.

Tonnage for a culvert shoulder, a rock garden and a shed pad

Length times width, times depth in inches divided by 12, then divided by 27 for cubic yards. This site publishes about 2,800 lb per cubic yard for driveway and walkway gravel, which is 1.40 tons per yard, so multiply the yardage by 1.4. Three hypothetical jobs:

• Culvert shoulder and ditch-side lining, 10 ft by 24 ft at 4 inches: 240 sq ft x 0.333 = 80 cubic feet. 80 divided by 27 = 3.0 cubic yards, or about 4.2 tons.
• Rock garden bed, 12 ft by 9 ft at 3 inches: 108 sq ft x 0.25 = 27 cubic feet. 27 divided by 27 = 1.0 cubic yard, or about 1.4 tons.
• Shed pad surfacing, 12 ft by 20 ft at 5 inches: 240 sq ft x 0.417 = 100 cubic feet. 100 divided by 27 = 3.7 cubic yards, or about 5.2 tons.

Round up rather than down on anything you are spreading by hand. Coming back for a second small load to finish one corner is the expensive way to do it. The Gravel Calculator will check the figures for you.

Living with it through a plow season

• Set the blade with shoes or a skid so it rides above the surface. A blade dropped to the stone peels the drive into the snowbank.
• Mark the edges before the first snow. Stakes at the apron and at any turn save both the lawn and the gravel.
• In spring, pull the displaced material back off the shoulders before it grows into the grass, then re-crown.
• Fill ruts as they appear. A rut that survives one wet spell becomes a pothole in the next.
• Top-dress every few seasons rather than waiting for the base to show through.

Choose your tonnage and a delivery date here on the product page. Delivery is set up at checkout from your ZIP code, and the driver needs a clear spot to tip: firm ground, room to back, and nothing overhead in the way.