[cuckoo]

It is only October and our paddock gateway is a quagmire already.  Does anyone have any experience of creating hard standing areas with road scrapings?  Or can you recommend anything other economical alternative?

Thanks

[Louise Gaunt]

Is there any slope running away from your gateway? Our neighbour uses road scrapings on his track which is at the top if a slope from us. When it rains heavily it all washes down and blocks our drains and the ditch along the top if our land!

[oor wullie]

I have seen really good tracks made from road scrapings - I think you need to compact them well.  They are like hens teeth here though, it is easier to source and no more expensive to use new hardcore for us.

If you just dump hardcore / gravel/ scrapings on muddy ground they will fairly quickly sink into the mud / the mud oozes up between them.  For a longer lasting fix you really need to dig out all of the soft ground first or, easier but less permanant, put down Terram or some other similar fabric which keeps the mud and hardcore separated.

[cuckoo]

Thanks for the comments - no slope so wont impact on anyone.
There is a lot of mud so will look into the fabric or we will dig out.  Have thought about using hard core but think road scrapings would be better as goats will poo on and can be swept

 

[Daisys Mum]

Road scraping are great especially if you can roll them, we have used type1 here with whining dust on top and it has lasted for about 7 years without needing anything done to it .

[Hevxxx99]

Remember to bear in mind that the wet that caused the muddiness will still need to go somewhere, so if it isn't there, where will it go? Possibly some form of ditch or run-off would help as well...

[devonlady]

Are road scrapings the same as scalpings? If so, I can recommend  them. We put tons of them into deep tractor ruts this year. Get 40ml? cm? I can't remember.

[philcaegrug]

Road scrapings are the planings of tarmac removed when a road is resurfaced and scalping are a stone mix usually sized 2" down to dust.

[devonlady]

Ahh right! And they were 40 mm I see now that I've  found the invoice. Money well spent!

[lars64]

Sorry to be negative, but I wouldn't be putting down stone if it's that wet, you really wanted to have done the job when it was drier and compacted it down properly. Then, like others have said, strip off the top soil, make sure it can drain, lay down a good layer of type 1 or similar and compact (borrow a wacker plate). You might have to put some heavier stone underneath the type 1 depending on the conditions. I'm not a big fan of road planings, you need fines to bind stone together and in my experience planings doesn't have the right mix. It looks great for 5 minutes but doesn't hold together for long.

[AndynJ]

Personally we dig out min. 10" put a dutch drain in on the lowest point, put down weed control, we then use a layer of 80mm demolition rubble £7/ton then 40mm dem rubble £7/ton then 40mm stone £14/ton we then use a 20mm chard which is pretty but £22/ton
planings down here are £16 a ton
We hire in a roller for £80 for the week.

[claire]

I talked to a engineer once about 'road s**t' .. he said its nothing but s**t.. I've seen tracks ruined by people trying to save money and do the cheapest thing... its uneven and unstable.

[devonlady]

My scalpings are still doing well. The dry summer probably helped.

[Small Farmer]

I visited a farm near Buckingham a few weeks ago which had installed a number of (grant aided) gateway hard standings.  Each was dug out rather more than a foot, drained, then built on well rammed rubble and finished with 40mm stone much as AndynJ described.  Not cheap but intended to last.

[cloddopper]

A few years I asked my big bro about gateway accesses for traffic and animals as he has run horses for 50 odd years.

 His advice was make a dug out butterfly shape so a fan shaped wing is either side of the gate excavate it a good 18 inches deep and at least a tractor & trailer back onto the field plus a couple of metres .
Put Terram or similar or old slit fertilized bags down , inter weave the slit bags if you have enough and lay in some brick rubble to about a foot deep , spend time getting it right . Then run a vibrating plate over it to compact it in a bit,  then top with a foot of the road planings already mentioned & vibrate it down . when finished it should stand at least 4 inches proud of the surrounding ground for reasons of drainage .

 Making it fan shaped either side of the gate allows the animals to approach the gate from any angle without churning it to mud , it also gives them some dry ground if it becomes sopping wet elsewhere.

 I made my farm accesses like this but they were three feet deep as the ground was silt that tended to be a bit live when really wet .  Yes .... it cost a fortune but in the long term was well worth it for the animals and our machinery etc. .

 One last thing that has just come to mind ..
 Hate it or not I suggest you ring up planning and see ( hypothetically of course ) if you need consent or some sort of permit to construct the gate way hard standing . 

I'd hate to learn that you needed one but didn't check and ended up having to excavate it all & return it to as it was plus gaining a fine and a criminal record to boot . Ii have heard of such things ( On TAS  perhaps ?  ?)  wrt new track ways over existing tracks had to have planning permission & set forms of construction .

 Maybe the local authority website has some information in it for you to consider .