Gravel Roads 101

[aircut2013]

Hello folks,

i am thrilled. i have just purchased a plot of land. the road leading to the land is a mud road. and i want to pave a gravel road. there is a nearby source that will sell a truckload of gravel for 200baht, can anyone offer his own experience on making a 300meter gravel road? what size of stones to use? how to best build it? what was your cost or any thing else you might wish to share.

the land for the road is public and i have the permission of the tessaban, they wont however at this stage make the road themselves .....

thanks for any input

[cooked]

How much is a truck load? We paid ฿500.- for 1M3 last year for road aggregate, ฿600.- yesterday for concrete aggregate.

Ideally you should be using road gravel (a mixture of different sizes of stones, 30cm thick. and compacted. You won't do this, much too expensive.

I would order concrete aggregate (and I don't know what you have available) and calculate on the basis of 6 cm thick and maybe 3 meters wide. Tipping it out slowly while going slowly forward AND dragging a HEAVY plank or piece of iron behind the truck will get most of it distributed nicely. This needs supervision, telling the driver to go faster or slower.

This will last for a few years, after that you can occasionally do a bit of repair. You are talking about 700 -900 M2 @ 6cm = about 40 - 50M3.

[StefanBBK]

Your price is inexpensive, I guess it is in the countryside, far away.

Best would be to ask locals what they have available in terms of equipment to spread, compact the gravel and who does it.

Pay somebody to do it for you.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[StefanBBK]

How much is a truck load? We paid ฿500.- for 1M3 last year for road aggregate, ฿600.- yesterday for concrete aggregate.

Ideally you should be using road gravel (a mixture of different sizes of stones, 30cm thick. and compacted. You won't do this, much too expensive.

I would order concrete aggregate (and I don't know what you have available) and calculate on the basis of 6 cm thick and maybe 3 meters wide. Tipping it out slowly while going slowly forward AND dragging a HEAVY plank or piece of iron behind the truck will get most of it distributed nicely. This needs supervision, telling the driver to go faster or slower.

This will last for a few years, after that you can occasionally do a bit of repair. You are talking about 700 -900 M2 @ 6cm = about 40 - 50M3.

your m3 price is very high. Here in Bangkok the price is 250 to 350 per m3.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[loong]

No experience of roads, but we put down gravel on the common land opposite our driveway to give us a hard area for turning the pick-up. The road is not wide enough to turn direct from our driveway and we have an electric pole that restricts the width of our driveway.

We've had to put gravel down 3 times because it has sunk into the mud in rainy season. Mind you everybody uses it to turn round now and often somebody parks on it and blocks us in!

We didn't need to add more gravel last rainy season, but we hardly saw any rain.

Depending on what traffic will use the road and how deep the mud is, you may find it quite expensive to keep renewing the gravel. You may find it cheaper in the long run to put down concrete

[weegee]

Aircut2013...which area are you, as I did roads here and bought quarry gravel by the truckload....750Baht per load(6mtrs). Doesnt matter what size the gravel, as long as its got stones in it. As said above it will settle with use and you may have to topup after a few months. Having said that, I only needed one truck to do this. My road was about only 50mtrs long and used 4 truck loads. it has now settled hard as a rock, and no topups required anymore.

Maybe i have been lucky.

[aircut2013]

Aircut2013...which area are you, as I did roads here and bought quarry gravel by the truckload....750Baht per load(6mtrs). Doesnt matter what size the gravel, as long as its got stones in it. As said above it will settle with use and you may have to topup after a few months. Having said that, I only needed one truck to do this. My road was about only 50mtrs long and used 4 truck loads. it has now settled hard as a rock, and no topups required anymore.

Maybe i have been lucky.

I am northern to chaingmai. the road i need to "upgrade" is between a mountain and a all year round water stream. so i cant increase its width only make it passable.

there is as i said a gravel mine near the location, and they would sell a 6 wealler truck load for about 200b

[weegee]

Aircut2013...which area are you, as I did roads here and bought quarry gravel by the truckload....750Baht per load(6mtrs). Doesnt matter what size the gravel, as long as its got stones in it. As said above it will settle with use and you may have to topup after a few months. Having said that, I only needed one truck to do this. My road was about only 50mtrs long and used 4 truck loads. it has now settled hard as a rock, and no topups required anymore.

Maybe i have been lucky.

I am northern to chaingmai. the road i need to "upgrade" is between a mountain and a all year round water stream. so i cant increase its width only make it passable.

there is as i said a gravel mine near the location, and they would sell a 6 wealler truck load for about 200b

Go for it....at 200baht a load you cant loose. good luck.

[loong]

Aircut2013...which area are you, as I did roads here and bought quarry gravel by the truckload....750Baht per load(6mtrs). Doesnt matter what size the gravel, as long as its got stones in it. As said above it will settle with use and you may have to topup after a few months. Having said that, I only needed one truck to do this. My road was about only 50mtrs long and used 4 truck loads. it has now settled hard as a rock, and no topups required anymore.

Maybe i have been lucky.

I am northern to chaingmai. the road i need to "upgrade" is between a mountain and a all year round water stream. so i cant increase its width only make it passable.

there is as i said a gravel mine near the location, and they would sell a 6 wealler truck load for about 200b

]

Forget what I wrote earlier.

When you said 200Bt, I thought that you were talking about a pick up truck, and I thought that was cheap

@200 Bt for a 6 wheeler load! Wow, that's cheaper than dirt!

Just be certain to make sure that there are no hidden costs.

ie. 200 Bt could be the cost of the gravel, but you then find that you have to pay extra for transport/delivery.

[kickstart]

I wish i could get a load for 200, bart round here a 10 wheel wagon load is 1000 bart straight from a quarry only 5 km from here,soft stone some big lumps, last year, next door neighbor, and us had 2 loads in across a wet hole on our joint road , so far no problems, we got a Ford 6600 with a blade on leveled it all out, 1 hour was 500 bart about standard price round here , made a good job cattle walk on it all the time,so far no foot proberlems