Building a New Driveway

One of the projects hanging over my head has been to build a new driveway to the back. We have a very steep hill from the street down to the back. Look at the fence rail in front of the bush. That gives you some idea about how steep the hill is.



So how does one go about building a driveway? I have no idea.

But, I have a tractor!! I have dirt. I have a large pile of broken up concrete.

I talked to a few people and one of the first steps so to lay down some aggregate. I just happen to have a pile of concrete left over from the original owner when he replaced a driveway. I spent a very l-o-n-g weekend with a 60# jack hammer breaking up the larger pieces into smaller pieces. It makes my shoulders ache all over again just to think about it.


After the aggregate is down, it needs something to hold it in place. At last a use for that pile of Colorado clay! Here are some pictures from the seat of the tractor. Once the concrete piecs were spread out a bit I went to the dirt pile and picked up a bucket of clay.



Transport it to the construction site:



And dump it on top of the aggregate and smooth it around a bit so I have a somewhat smooth surface.


I am building it up in about 6" to 9" lifts (layers). Once the dirt is down it needs to be packed down to kind of lock everything into place. First I wet the dirt down for an hour or so to get it good an moist all the way through. I wait for another hour or two to let the surface dry a bit and then I drove the pickup back and forth over it a few times. It pushes the dirt down into all the spaces between the aggregate and locks things down pretty tight. So far so good. But I've got a long way to go and now I am out of dirt.

To get more dirt to finish the driveway I must now start another project to build a sidewalk from the front door. I can use the spoil (dirt) I dig up for the sidewalk to build the driveway. It will take a bunch. Because of the way the hill is shaped, I need to raise the center of the new driveway by 14".

More pics as progress continues.