Gravel Delivery FAQ: Answers You Can Check Against the Ground

Stand where the work is going and most of these answers are already half visible. You can see whether the old stone has sunk into the clay, whether water leaves the area or ponds at one end, how tight the turn into the drive is, and how steep the fall is across the bed. The questions below are the ones that come up between that walk around the property and a delivery date being chosen.

Which stone goes in a drain and which goes under a drive?

Fines are the dividing line. A drive wants material that binds, so ABC Stone or Crush and Run goes in, both graded blends that run down to dust and lock together when compacted. A drain wants water to travel, so it takes washed stone with the fines removed: #57 Stone, #67 Stone or Drain Rock. Putting base material in a trench on red clay turns it into a holding tank, which is the commonest drainage mistake here.

The mechanism is easy enough to check in your hand. Clean stone has been washed so the dust and small particles are gone, leaving voids between the pieces for water to move through, which is why it stays loose and will not form a firm surface on its own. Material with fines is graded from the top size down to dust, so the small particles fill the voids and the layer knits together under compaction. One carries water, the other carries load.

Can topsoil, garden soil and fill dirt stand in for each other?

They do three different jobs. Fill Dirt is the structural one, used to bring a low corner up to grade before anything else goes on, and it is screened with little organic matter in it for exactly that reason. Top Soil is the screened growing layer that goes over the top, usually in the upper few inches. Garden Soil is blended with compost for beds and planters. Use fill dirt as a lawn layer and it stays hard; use garden soil as fill and it settles.

Does the ground here change what I should buy?

More than most people expect. Piedmont red clay drains slowly and holds water, so a compacted base and a route for water to leave do most of the work, and stone laid straight onto wet clay disappears into it. Coastal Plain ground runs sandy and drains fast, which solves the water problem and creates a different one, since loose sand gives a surface nothing to grip and the binding has to come from the fines in the stone. In the mountain counties, slope and a real freeze are the added factors.

Is there any point laying fabric under stone on red clay?

It depends what is underneath. Over soft, wet clay a separation fabric is worth using under a base layer, because it stops stone migrating down into the subgrade and clay pumping up into the stone. Under decorative cover in a bed it does less than people hope, since organic matter builds on top of it and weeds root in that. Under a drain, wrap the washed stone rather than lining the trench floor alone. Fabric is not a catalogue item on this site, so it comes from a local landscape supplier rather than onto this order.

How do I stop stone walking down a slope?

Edge it and choose an angular material. Rounded stone such as 3/8" Natural Pea Gravel travels on any fall at all, so on a sloping path an angular crushed size holds better. Give the run a definite edge, and break long falls into shorter sections rather than one continuous slide. On a steep bank the answer is usually not gravel at all: that is what RipRap and Large River Rock are for, set on a prepared face.

How deep should a base go for a car, and does a loaded truck need more?

The site's published guidance puts compacted base near four inches, and a new drive nearer six. That covers cars and light vehicles on a properly shaped subgrade. Regular loaded-truck traffic, a turning area for deliveries, or equipment on a pad is a different question, and the honest answer is that it should be designed rather than guessed at, especially on clay that softens when wet. Where a structure or a graded channel is involved, that needs an engineer.

Is it worth holding on to what is left over?

Base material and washed stone keep indefinitely if the pile is somewhere it will not wash into a drain or spread across a lawn. Put it on a tarp or a hard corner and it will get used, since edges and settling almost always need topping up in the first season. Soil and mulch are the ones with a shelf life: keep them covered, and use them while they are still loose rather than letting a pile compact and sour.

Two other pages carry what this list leaves out. Units, rounding, the five or ten percent allowance and the weight of a cubic yard are the calculators' job. What has to be clear for a loaded truck to reach the drop spot, what to have sorted by the delivery day and what the checkout screen decides are on the delivery page, while staged deliveries, restricted access or a spec sheet rather than a product name still go through the contact page.

Who operates North Carolina Rock Supply?