Chip and seal experience?

[MoJ]

Anyone have any?

I have about 200 ft of gravel driveway before it reaches the concrete garage approach. The gravel has packed and seaoned for about 6 months and I'm considering doing a chip and seal as I've heard it's fairly inexpensive compared to traditional asphalt or concrete paving.

What sort of prep work should I do first?
Is this a job a one man DIY'er can take on with the proper rented equipment?
If I don't do it myself any idea on what I should expect for bids (square yard/foot etc)?

Thanks!
Jason

[MOfj40]

When I was living in rural VA chip and seal driveways were very common. A lot of them were DIY.

Out there they bought the chip and seal ready to apply by the dump truck load. They'd have the truck lay down an even 2-3 inches of chip and seal over their existing packed gravel and then roll it with a weighted roller (either tractor mounted or small steamroller). Then just drive on it and wait for warm weather. It will pack/harden itself for the most part once it gets warm.

Out there it was called crush and run instead of chip and seal. Can't help you on bids/price other than it was generally accepted to be much cheaper than either asphalt or concrete and only slightly more than pea gravel.

[bkfj40]

the crush and run is actually crusher run, like what comes out of the quarry straight from the crusher. If you want it to hold together a bit longer, you can toss in some tar, portland cement, or some other type of binder...

bk

[MoJ]

The chip and seal I'm referring to invovles spraying a tar like substance, spreading small rocks on top of it, and then rolling it so the rocks smash into the tar and bond together. There's a public road not too far from me that was paved this way. It seems to hold up very well and is dust free.

[trainrech]

Tossing this out there, but is there a source for recycled asphalt paving in your area? Gives you the best of both worlds - aggregate and an asphalt binder. Price around here is $3.00 / ton.

[wfd175]

When wheels turn backing out of the garage on a hot summer day, the chip gets seperated from the seal, and the bonding agent (Tar) comes to the top. Then you get it stuck on your shoes when you get in your car and it screws up your carpet. Also, the tar is naturally attracted to sports car paint Z's particularly. You could create a concrete maneuvering area, then go chip and seal up the hill..

On county roads it's fine, but take a good look where the cars come out of their driveways onto the county road, you'll see the gravel working it's way down further into the tar. We have C&S all over Washington, take a good look, it's fine until summer comes, then it goes to hell, and it's all over your car.

Luckily they just stopped last year re-doing chip and seal all over town, and now we are getting asphalt.

Unfortunately, there really any other affordable options besides concrete and asphaltic pavement. I personally like the tan b river pebble option, I think it's looks nice. You may have to run a rake over it once in a while, but it does hold up as long as you keep the channelized water off of it, via crowning etc... and no tar is involved, just a roller compacted chat base.

One difficulty you may also have with a driveway cut through the woods is subsurface compaction. I doubt they used a sheeps foot, or laid geofabric down prior to placing gravel. As time goes on, our highly expansive clay soils have a tendency to pump up and down, and asphalt may be a waste of money and simply break up over time.

So here we are back to square one almost. I would do something besides C&S in the maneuvering area. Then go with either a C&S, gravel up to the main road. You can do it yourself, however, to do it right, you would need to grade the road flat or slightly crowned, proof roll it, lay down the tar, lay down the gravel, then proof roll it again.

[MoJ]

Originally Posted by wfd175

When wheels turn backing out of the garage on a hot summer day, the chip gets seperated from the seal, and the bonding agent (Tar) comes to the top. Then you get it stuck on your shoes when you get in your car and it screws up your carpet. Also, the tar is naturally attracted to sports car paint Z's particularly. You could create a concrete maneuvering area, then go chip and seal up the hill..

On county roads it's fine, but take a good look where the cars come out of their driveways onto the county road, you'll see the gravel working it's way down further into the tar. We have C&S all over Washington, take a good look, it's fine until summer comes, then it goes to hell, and it's all over your car.

Luckily they just stopped last year re-doing chip and seal all over town, and now we are getting asphalt.

Unfortunately, there really any other affordable options besides concrete and asphaltic pavement. I personally like the tan b river pebble option, I think it's looks nice. You may have to run a rake over it once in a while, but it does hold up as long as you keep the channelized water off of it, via crowning etc... and no tar is involved, just a roller compacted chat base.

One difficulty you may also have with a driveway cut through the woods is subsurface compaction. I doubt they used a sheeps foot, or laid geofabric down prior to placing gravel. As time goes on, our highly expansive clay soils have a tendency to pump up and down, and asphalt may be a waste of money and simply break up over time.

So here we are back to square one almost. I would do something besides C&S in the maneuvering area. Then go with either a C&S, gravel up to the main road. You can do it yourself, however, to do it right, you would need to grade the road flat or slightly crowned, proof roll it, lay down the tar, lay down the gravel, then proof roll it again.

So you're saying it will work?

My concrete approach in front of the garage is 20ft but I believe we back beyond that when coming out of the garage and turning. The road leading to the driveway is chip and seal and it seems OK in the summer...probably because it's 30 years old and there's not much tar left. Hmmmm.

[wfd175]

Yep. Just make sure the maneuvering area is sized properly.

It's borderline DIY. It takes a few pieces of specialized equipment to be done properly (level surface) and heater/tar dump, with small ride-on compactor.

For the best price, wait until you start seeing them around town or in the next town doing some chip an seal projects and approach that company for a bid. Whether they do a large county road job, or small one, they still have the same amount of equipment clean up afterwards.