Gravel road maintenance

The best time for maintenance of gravel roads is in the spring when winter road treatment has ended and frost has left the soil.

It is important to make sure that the ditches by the road are sufficiently deep so that the water does not remain on the roadway, but runs down into the ditches. There is a significant difference between crushed rock products and natural gravel. Crushed rock has more splintery particles that bind the material together better. If you use natural gravel products the particles in the material are more circular, this leads to a poorer result from a compaction standpoint and the material does not remain on the roadway but rolls out to the edges.

You will need:

  • Grader
  • Truck equipped with a spreader

We recommend these materials:

  • Wearing course e.g. 0/16 or 0/18

Do this

  1. Start by levelling the road using a grader or the like. It's important to bite into the roadway a little so that you do not just draw the material and fill potholes with material.
  2. With a proper surfacer you can perform edge cutting at the same time. Usually there is quite a lot of material that can be added to the roadway. It is important that you create a camber after surfacing (a drop from the middle out towards the edges). The aforementioned work should be carried out after heavy rainfall.
  3. A new wearing course 0/16 or 0/18 should be spread out over the roadway as soon as possible after levelling. The course thickness should be 3–5 cm and the material laid with a truck equipped with a spreader.