Potholes in my driveway?

Question

We have a very long dirt driveway that is too expensive to pave. Right now there are quite a few potholes. What should I use to fill the holes and prevent them from coming back? Thanks.

Answer 1

If your driveway is all dirt, I would pack in each hole with dirt, get a tamper to tamp down the earth, then water, tamp, fill in, tamp it in, water again, repeat until the area is fairly flat. The key is to tamp it down so the earth is compacted in good. This would be the cheapest way of going about it.

Or....

Since $$ is an issue in getting it paved, you could lay down a 2" to 3" layer of pea gravel. Basically 1/4" to 3/8" sized rocks.

I would try to stay away from using sand in these holes as that would easily come out with repeated driving over it. If you have good clay soil around your house, all the better. That stuff mixed with decomposed granite or in this case, sand would work. But just dont do sand by itself.

Answer 2

Well, if you watch much TV, DR makes a dirt road scraper/filler device you drag behind a tractor to do this work. I am suspect of it's abilities, since it doesn't seem to pack the scraped materials back down.
Anyway, the cheap fix is to use a rock base to fill in the holes. The more fines they leave in the better, as the fines help lock in the rock. This needs to be compacted in place, adding no more then 6" at a time and better if you rent a vibrating plate compactor or a jumping jack to compact well.
Long term fix is to strip the roadway, add a geotech fabric and then add a good road base material. This would put your drive one step away from paving.

Answer 3

Use "1" minus chat road blend". It is 1" minus rock with fine power that once wet then drys it is like concrete.