Surface for a boggy, sloping path?

[Paul200]

Anyone out there into civil engineering? I've got a gently sloping path up the hill at the back of our house that needs some sort of surface treatment to make it safe to use, particularly at this time of year. The surface soil is peat and leaf mould over stone. The stone content makes it a nightmare to dig.

It is used mainly as a footpath/wheelbarrow route but occasionally I need to drive my truck up there to drag logs out of the woods. I thought maybe putting a geotextile down, cover it with about 75mm of Type 1 and maybe some crushed stone on top of that. Years of use has worn the surface down to a channel below the sides so I wouldn't have to contain it in any way. It doesn't have to look pretty - I just need to make it serviceable and prevent me from sliding base over apex :roll:

If anyone has anything else to add to the mix I'll be very grateful.

 

[RobinBHM]

Sounds like a good plan.

I bought some terram geotextile from fleabay. Not too expensive and the proper, heavy white stuff not that black woven carp.

 

[Ring]

What about using planer chippings from road construction usually can be bought cheap and they might even deliver if the work is not to far away.
Jim

 

[DrPhill]

If you can peg through it securely then something like this might work:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Instant-Gar...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B007H6IVYM

Might be a bit pricey if the path is long......

 

[AJB Temple]

How "gentle" is the slope.

Doing anything over waterlogged ground is very difficult in my experience and bodging it up just means doing it again in a couple of years.

If it were me and I were using the path regularly and planned to stay there, I would hire a mini excavator for a day and dig out a foundation to fill with type 1 (or whatever crushed material you have to hand) taming it back using the excavator. I would probably be tempted to shutter the siders and concrete the surface unless aesthetics are paramount, in which case I would use a series of long shallow steps and a more decorative surface.

 

[Paul200]

Thanks people. The slope gradient is approx. 1 in 12 and length is around 25 metres. I did think about long shallow steps but wondered how a wheelbarrow would cope. I suppose if I faced the steps with stone (we've got plenty laying about) I could leave a wheel slope up the middle and infill the steps with crushed stone.

We're in a rural location so although it doesn't need to be ornate it would be nice if it looked like it 'belonged' - so I wouldn't want concrete. It tends to be waterlogged for a couple of months over winter - the rest of the time there's one boggy patch where rainwater drains off of the slope to the right - I can put a gravel drain across that part. I hear what you're saying about doing it right the first time AJB and I may just have to bite the bullet and go down the excavator route - but I want to explore other options first.

Providing the surface is permeable and deep enough I'm fairly confident that the water won't be such an issue. I just wondered if there were any other possible solutions that I hadn't heard of.

Planer chippings are a good idea Jim - I'll be looking out for roadworks locally now, but I don't hold out much hope because there aren't many roads here and no-one seems to maintain them ;-)

I've got a massive roll of non-woven geotextile from a neighbour that cost me a trailer full of logs, so I'm sorted for that thanks Robin.

Not sure the plastic roll out would survive my 4x4 Phill - good idea to protect a lawn though.

Thanks again for your input guys. I think getting a layer of Type 1 or something similar down is a good first step. Then at least it won't be slippy and will form a base for any option I want to go for later.

Cheers

Paul

 

[AJB Temple]

If you search on line you will find yards that sell road planings. I bought 20 tons delivered about 3 months ago and that was £140 in Kent. If you can tip close to your working area that helps a lot, as even a few tons is a lot to shovel and barrow by hand. You would probably get away with a 10 tons to do a properly excavated fill to a decent depth.

Borrowing up and down shallow steps is not big deal. You have got to cover about a 2 metre fall over 25 meters, so if each step was a metre long you only need a 10 cm rise on each one, which a barrow will hardly notice. This is the thickness of one brick. You can make a pretty nice looking path very cheaply by creating each step edge with say 4 or 6 bricks (preferably engineering or something quite chip resistant), back filling with concrete over your type 1 or scalpings / planings and rolling or tamping some gravel into the damp surface.

I have seen the plastic path / car park retaining honeycomb material used pretty successfully on slopes and level areas, either grassed or gravel infilled or even wood chip infilled, but never used it myself and it is quite expensive. Either way, to deal with your bog issue you will need to provide some drainage. If one part stays wet year round, I am thinking "pond" with a bridge over it ;-)

 

[Bm101]

This might sound like a daft question but do you have any stone quarries near you Paul.

 

[hanser]

Another vote for terram and quarry waste/scalpings/road planings

 

[dickm]

Was talking to a friend about exactly this problem, but in Aberdeenshire. He'd tried to get road planings, but they are like gold dust as the local contractors get there first. Their big advantage if you live somewhere warm is that they can heal together, but not up here! I'd be wary of geotextile; they've used it in a similar situation at Haddo, Ann it's just sunk out of site into the bog. Suspect you will need to dig down to something a bit firm, then build up from there.

 

[Paul200]

Hmm - plenty to think about then! Maybe I've overplayed the boggy bit - it is boggy/muddy and slippery but not in a major way. There's solid rock not too far below the surface so anything I put down won't be going far. One of the usual reasons geotextile is used is to help spread the load over unstable ground but in this case it would be there to stop the mud 'pumping' up into the new surface, whatever that may be.

I had thought about the plastic honeycomb but I'm trying to keep the cost down and also think it's possibly a bit OTT for a garden path - especially as you could hardly call our woodland-edge land a 'garden'! Bracken infested hillside would be a better description.

I liked your 'bridge over a pond' AJB - there is already a culverted burn running under the path just as it turns left at the top of the picture - another wouldn't be out of the question

The only stone quarry near us that I can find is owned by Marshall's, the paving people, so I don't think they'd be interested in my little order - worth a phone call though. I think most people round here have just collected any stone they need from the surrounding land - Galloway is renowned for it's drystane dykes - and we have a very small quarry on our bit of land, which has been used as a midden in years gone by but we think also supplied the stone for our cottage.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to do a bit more research into methods and prices and give it a bit of thought now.

Cheers

Paul

 

[DrPhill]

Not sure the plastic roll out would survive my 4x4 Phill - good idea to protect a lawn though.

missed the bit about the truck.....