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How to fix a black mud driveway?

Hi everyone first time home owner/complete novice hoping someone can.assist we have a black mud driveway and i need help in determining how to fix it. I've been told to put stones but don't understand what that entails. Which stones?

Issue being the car scrapes out on the middle an has been bogged before. Gets worse everytime it rains. The block slopes downward slightly dfrom back front but also from one side to the other .

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Jewelleryrescue

Hi @Zeus81

You can use any stones 20mm diameter or clean recycled concrete , Blue metal stones look ok and are less expensive looking at your area you will need about 6 tonnes of them as they sink into the mud initially. You can put weed mat down first to stop the mud coming up more. One tonne usualy costs aprox $90 plus delivery charge $100

Crushed granite also is a favorite for longer drive ways and may keep costs down. Add weed mat etc. You might beacle to by recycled but watch out i comes with metal junk in it some times.

Or consider looking at gum tree or ebay for cheap or free bricks or pavers and putting them onto the ground it wont be a perfect job unless you want to go to alot more trouble.

You can even lay down wooden sleepers and drive on two tracks of them they can crack under the weight.

The best neatest long tern solution is cementing two drive way wheel tracks down. using steel inside 100mm thick this can be done in stages. Or a full stab.

Hope this helps with ideas.

Zeus81

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/35009#Comment_35009

Thanks for your response @Jewelleryrescue.

So just to clarify, could i just put weedmats on the driveway tracks and then put stones on top of them? I'm really clueless with this sort of stuff....ive been told to.hire a digger thingy and excavate it...clearly by.my use of the word 'thingy' this is beyond my capabilities lol.

Concreting is beyond my financial reach at the moment.

I'm not too concerned with how it looks, just need to get the cars off the street and into the yard!

Jewelleryrescue

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/79806#Comment_79806

Hi @Zeus81

Yes probably best to hand level the car marks a bit fill the deeper car tracks.. The weed mat is a long loll will roll out and form a barrier between the mud and the stones so they dont mix

lay out meed mat and pour stones on top. about 100mm deep

EricL

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/79806#Comment_79806

Hello @Zeus81

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's wonderful to have you join us, and thanks for sharing your question about fixing your muddy driveway.

Sand and gravel start to get expensive once you begin building a large driveway. In order to protect your investment, I suggest building a large rectangular base made of 200 x 50mm 2.4m Treated Pine Sleeper CCA H4. This will prevent your gravel from being washed away in the rain.

Soft lawn soil is not meant to be driven on constantly. Generally speaking, in order to prepare it to become a driveway or parking spot the soft soil must be removed and the soil underneath must then be compacted using a Large Compactor. A mixture of crusher dust, aggregate and sand are placed in as a base and compacted as well. The driveway gravel is then placed above this and is compacted flat.

However, in an emergency my best advice is to level the area as best you can before putting the driveway gravel on top. It's best to use a compactor on the surface so that the gravel locks in place and does not sink when you drive on it. Keep in mind that this is a temporary solution and eventually the gravel will sink.

Let me call on our experienced members @Dave-1, @TedBear and @homeinmelbourne for their recommendations.

Please remember to wear personal protection such as gloves, goggles and a mask when working on your project.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric

Dave-1

Evening @Zeus81

Ahhh man 😕 What a pain... Can be fixed 🙂 But some effort will be involved.

Going through the suggestions on how to improve your driveway I pretty much am thinking @EricL's suggestion or along his suggestion may be the way to go.

That soft top/yard soil needs to be removed, Id say that the "thingy" is a little bobcat you can hire. Shovel and mattock will work but believe me that is a job and a half as you need to remove all that "soft" soil on the tire tracks at the very least.

I like the frame idea EricL mentioned, Not sure if he is talking the width of the driveway or just a box type deal for the tyre marks. You could go either way, as long as the tyre box base is compacted with a mechanical compacter so track has to be as wide as the plate of the compacter.

Id say 20cm of soil would be a good amount to remove (you should be getting down to a more solid/stable ground then), then gravel over the compacted boxed area. The box will hold the gravel in the path area, and also help it stop from pushing down and up when the weight of a car drives over it.

Mmm trying to determine where all the water is coming from that is causing so much mud as it looks like its been happing for awhile? It may be an idea to factor that in as some kind of drain on the high sid eof the driveway (simple trench or dishdrain I am thinking until you know more)

How about this for an alternative.

Same steps as above but not so much gravel needed.

20cm depth

Compacted dirt base of the area (track width or the whole width, depends on how you go)

Instead of all gravel, see if you can pick up some pavers free or cheaply. Facebook market place or gumtree often have "free pavers being given away" you just have to be fast and keep an eye out for them. You could also contact a landscaping company and work a deal out if they pull up pavers for someone and need to get rid of them. I did that and picked up 600 odd pavers 🙂

So if you look at the profile of the driveway,

Compacted earth, 15ish cm of gravel. 8mm size

Pavers on top still within that framework.

It may not stand up for a lot of traffic but will allow the cars to get off the street and not sink into the mud.

Dave

Dave-1

@Zeus81

Sorry forgot to mention that a guy I worked with when I had to drive down lots of paddock style driveways that were waterlogged taught me to stay in the rut as the soil even tho underneath the water it was still more compacted then the soil to either side. Adds a few +++ points to removing the tracks of dirt and compacting them properly is all.

(I shifted the work station waggon off the track to just on the side and he was yelling at me "what are you doing! get back in the rut" Yeah.... couple of Telstra workers, It was fun times 🙂 and nah, not being sarcastic 🙂

Dave

Zeus81

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/104340#Comment_104340

Thanks! This sounds like somethg i can do! Appreciate the advice.

Zeus81

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/104353#Comment_104353

Thanks Eric! That sounds like a good plan, but way beyond my capabilities at the moment, i'll go with option 2 for the moment! Appreciate the response.

Zeus81

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/35082#Comment_35082

Hi Dave...its a downward sloping block, but the whole street also is on a slight incline, all on blacksoil, so the water simply runs on the side of the block through the path of least resistance, being the driveway track. We also get some run off from the neighbours that can pool in the driveway....and it rained a lot here lol.

Thanks for your advice, that sounds way beyond my capabilities at the moment, so i'll probably just go the temporary option. But its good to know what sort of thing needs to eventually be done in the future. Appreciate the advice!

Dave-1

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/79839#Comment_79839

Evening @Zeus81

Selling yourself short 🙂 If you have shifted cars out of that mud, even ith help well you have enough skills already.

The two long trench style deals can be done by hand over time (spoken from experience of digging a 30m trench through solid clay, could have and possibly should have hired a little digger but nope didnt have the dollars) so bit by bit I did it and believe me it looks great now. Stormwater rectification stage 1 is the first stage of the project.

We dont need huge skillset, just enough of a "want" to continue slowly.

Pavers can be stockpiled as your find them (I have my pile waiting for my spa area project to start and thats 2 years ago I picked them up) They dont have a use by date 😀

Timber for the sides, yeah you probary will need to save or keep an eye out for someone pulling down an old school timber fence and grab the hardwood rails. Prep them before they get used and they will last for awhile (I have a path edged this way with no treatment to the timber, been there for at least 5 years.

Not tryingto talk you into it but really, bit by bit makes a large project doable.

Whatever way you go, would love to see how you go (even if its just a trench to chanel teh wateraway form the driveway might dry it out enough?)

Dave

Jewelleryrescue

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/104362#Comment_104362

hi @Zeus81

I still stand by my idea

Weed mat on ground add stones or gravel the car weighs 1.5 tonnes it will soon compact the drive and no need to hire compactor simply add more gravel into wheel marks until it is compacted.

Some ones idea taking out some of that surface mud will help 50mm maybe a timber box edge.

Or you can go to carpet shops and collect old large room section carpets and put it on the ground all the way up the drive they will rot eventually but they are free. Carpet places have to pay to remove rubbish so they will like the idea.

TedBear

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/119256#Comment_119256

Hi @Zeus81, from your pics it doesn't look that bad, fairly firm, if you are just planning a quick fix. I would look at getting a truck load of large round gravel stones, delivered in the morning and hire a heavy, powered roller (~$200/day) to pack them down, especially in the tyre tracks, then top that up with a load of mixed sized gravel in the afternoon. Roll it down too. The mud should hold it all in place.

This assumes that there is a place where the surface water can run off to. The roadway hopefully.

TedBear

Hi @Zeus81

In addition to my last suggestion, if hiring a roller is too expensive or too much trouble, you could use a vehicle with wide tyres to pack the gravel as you go.

It would be safest to incorporate @Jewelleryrescue 's idea of getting some old carpet and putting that on top of the gravel before compressing it using a car, so you don't bog down.

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