Roadway

I thought there might be some experience of this here.....

Recently purchased a small amount of land. The plan is to put in around 300m of vehicle road for better access.

The ground is uneven but nothing crazy, be a few hills and a bit of fill and a few pipes needed here and there. 90%+ would be on solid rock after a little scraping so no need for road fabric.

I haven't got the job costed yet, anyone care to fire out a guesstimate figure around such work?

I'm half considering buying a machine and doing a DIY job, but I do realise construction gear is expensive now, then again so are skilled drivers.

ruwithme

Surely €1000 with a good digger man on the job would cover a lot of ground. Personally would never contemplate buying a digger for a specific run of work like that.

Unless you had experience previous on a digger you'd only be messing,not to mention how one would have the time for it anyway.

Most digger work i find can often be a two man job or if not getting on with something else connected to what a digger might be doing or has done.

Dunedin

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I thought there might be some experience of this here.....

Recently purchased a small amount of land. The plan is to put in around 300m of vehicle road for better access.


I'm half considering buying a machine and doing a DIY job, but I do realise construction gear is expensive now, then again so are skilled drivers.

Going to throw a rough guess that a 20ton load of broken stone would do 10 metres at €200 a load so that’s €6k. And probably 3-4 load of blinding sand to finish so going to guess at €7k I could be well off as a while since I did anything like that.

Would you not hire a machine for a job like that as opposed to buy unless you’re interested in a bit of diy work for yourself afterwards? Unless you know what you’re at, you’ll take 5 times longer than an experienced operator and won’t be as good a job

AckwelFoley

Yeah, hire a professional do the track machine work. Unless you have experience with them and have future work

Just because you have a hammer and saw doesn't mean you can roof a house. Being able to operate machine is one thing, knowing what to do correctly is another

More efficient use of money to get a professional

Bass Reeves

I would not bother with a machine unless you were experienced in there use and maintenance. 300M is a thousand feet of road. If as you say it's stone underneath what's above the stone, is there any sort of gravel you can access handy enough on the land.

It really depends on what amount of leveling you need. You should be on the lookout for any building fill you can come across for any deep fill. You said a few parts needed to be piped you can really go through stone in places like that. Will you get away with just fairly fine stuff on top of the stone can blind on top of the stone with 1-2'' of fine stuff.

Try and get a compacting roller after you have it done and spend a weekend up on top of it.

Dunedin

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I would not bother with a machine unless you were experienced in there use and maintenance. 300M is a thousand feet of road. If as you say it's stone underneath what's above the stone, is there any sort of gravel you can access handy enough on the land.

It really depends on what amount of leveling you need. You should be on the lookout for any building fill you can come across for any deep fill. You said a few parts needed to be piped you can really go through stone in places like that. Will you get away with just fairly fine stuff on top of the stone can blind on top of the stone with 1-2'' of fine stuff.

Try and get a compacting roller after you have it done and spend a weekend up on top of it.

Good man Bass - always on the lookout for a cheap job, OP might even get lads to pay him to let them put in his road!!!!

You might often come on the odd load of building rupple but he has 300m to do so highly unlikely that he’ll get to source enough to do anything like that

If he’s putting ina road which will require a digger then why would he not put it in as level as he can. Should leave it that he can drive a car on it - do it right do it once.

Bass Reeves

Dunedin wrote: »

Good man Bass - always on the lookout for a cheap job, OP might even get lads to pay him to let them put in his road!!!!

You might often come on the odd load of building rupple but he has 300m to do so highly unlikely that he’ll get to source enough to do anything like that

If he’s putting ina road which will require a digger then why would he not put it in as level as he can. Should leave it that he can drive a car on it - do it right do it once.

He putting in a thousand feet of roadway. On piped crossing you could lose 20 ton at least and forty ton or more in cases. He on top of rock and he has said no need of road fabric. In a dip or hollow you could lose 50 ton of stone. I done gaps in fields and it takes twenty ton to do both sides of the gap. I did a water trough last year where the cattle had pawed away the ground and it too a dumper load.

Even I. The best case scenario there are going to be places on the length of that road he will need to fill. A 25 ton load of stone is over 200+vat. It impossible to get screening or quarry fill or any cheap stone at present.

It very hard to get stone to sit on top of rock.. biggest then will be to make in such a way as that water will not lodge. If water flows off to sides ( but not too fast there is a chance you get the road to stay in place

Vibrating roller is the key and a lad giving you a hand with a powerlink box and fine 804( it gone very variable I got it last year and it had a huge portion of stone in it.

I definitely be on the look out for any fill or rubble I could get dropped in. You could be the wrong side of 20k on a road that length.

Even if he get 4-5 loads he it will save 1k.in stone for crossings

The thinking behind the purchase of a digger was we'd been fooling around with various bits of land thinking of building a house. Talking to a quantity surveyor friend telephone numbers kept coming up re road lengths. Besides the labour cost I couldn't figure out where such high figures were coming from. Obviously the amount of stone will be what it will be, I can't offhand think of where or from whom I'd get cheap fill tbh. 25-30 years ago I could have got any amount. Then out of the blue this bit of land comes up for sale. Given the length of the road - it's going to take whatever amount of loads to finish it - so the idea was buy a digger, do the job, sell the digger as a way of recouping some of the outlay. That can't be done with labour. But I do recognize the very valid points of experience, ability, and maintenance - I know two guys who both own/have owned machines, are mechanical, and don't do it for a dayjob. Time isn't so much of an issue as I'm set up on the farm to not be a busy fool.

The €7k figure had me reconsidering getting a lad in, €20k has me back at my original thinking. But I know, this is all guesstimating.

The first 150m of the road is across rocky, wet ground. There's a very thin skim of bog on it, I'd have to walk it again but off the top of my head there are probably 6 places need filling. The second half only has one wet spot on it and it'd be solid otherwise with grass on top, but very thin soil again.

I'll have to get some lads in and price it, might give me a better idea.

Edited to add, there's no shortage of rock on the land, but it's mostly in the form of bedrock which would cost plenty to break out. There's no gravel that I know of.

Bass Reeves

How big are the boggy areas that you cross to fill. IMO the machine will not be the big cost it will be the stone that makes or breaks you it's. The other issue is if you leave the road below the bog level you will need to find a way to remove water off the road way.

It's very hard to get anything to stay on plate rock. It also hard to water to flow through big unless you have drains.

Is the road flat or climbing up hill

893bet

There is a geo textile type membrane that can be put down at a cost which almost holds the stone up. No scrap off required under it. Def saves on stone. Worth investigating.