Laying hardcore DIY style - is this possible?

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diddy

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Hi all,

Have been looking at old posts about this but have a fairly specific question that I am hoping someone can help with! We are on clay & last winter the land got very poached so over the summer I have tried to get someone in to lay a patch of hardcore by the gateway & a path out to the field so we don’t all get sucked under the surface like last year! However, despite having several quotes, I haven’t managed to get anyone to actually come & do the work. The weather is now going & I’m thinking I’m going to have to sort the problem myself.

I don’t want to hire a digger as I’ve heard they’re quite hard to get the hang of – our access is very restricted & there are lots of trees I could potentially crash into! (This also help explain why no one else wants to come & do it of course!)

So is it possible to lay a frame with wood/sleepers & lay the hardcore directly onto the ground? I would then top with limestone or scalpings. I could then do the work by hand – it would be very hard but doable. Have just moved last winter’s muckheap one wheelbarrow at a time so am not averse to a bit of heavy lifting if I have to!

Has anyone done this or am I just going to have to wait out the winter & try again come spring? Any thoughts would be welcome – I’m just so frustrated as I was quite happy to pay someone but no one will come & do it for me!!

Thanks!

D. x
 
yes it is possible to do what you suggest. you may find you need to move more soil/clay than you first envisaged so allow for that.
Also the scalpings /stone will sink to the centre of the earth over time , or at least you'll think so. Best to put a layer of terran or silage wrap with some drainage holes cut into it down first then lay the stone on top . this has worked for us.
 
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Ooh thank you for that! When you say we might need to move more soil/clay than we think, did you dig a layer off the top before you laid the hardcore? Good tip re. the membrane - wan't sure if we'd need to do that or not so v helpful!
 
You can do however the frame will move as will be above ground and could lose its shape or frame may just sink into the clay. As far as I understand from your post you are not planning on digging down?

You can get v small diggers as you are better digging out an area, laying your hardcore and planings on top then whomping them down.

I have just had two areas done - one huge for lorry parking etc and the other a turnout area. Not something I would have done myself as also on heavy clay and it's pretty hard!
 
Last winter, I wheelbarrowed 3 or 4 cubic metre bags worth of crusher run into the boggy pit that developed in front of our smaller field shelter, when the grass mats sank. I levelled the stones by rake and garden roller after each barrow load, and the final result is good. It is 20 feet wide at the entrance to the field shelter, and tapers off gradually into the field. I didn't contain the crusher run in anything.

It sounds a bit Heath Robinson, but it does the job and looks neat.
 
Definitely possible. . We've done it in a gateway and planning to do another one soon. If you can drive the trailer with stone right up to the area in question that will help massively with the workload. .

Fiona
 
We did a 8' square landing pad in a gateway on top of clay. We knocked a inside wall down in the house, and barrowed the rubble down the lane into the field. We put it straight onto the grass/earth, without a frame. If you lay it deep enough and do it before the area is churned you will probably get away with it. We laid it nearly a foot deep. It is still there five years on. It has sunk a bit, but not much really.

If you go onto my profile there are photos of a hard standing area we made around the stables. We put hardcore onto the field without a membrane. Rough hardcore which was free, flattened it with a tractor bucket until it was 1-2' deep, then laid half a foot of road planings on top to level it. This is still going perfectly strong after five winters now. It hasn't moved at all. We are on the wettest, boggiest clay ground you could get...
 
If you can get type 1 limestone (not type 1 granite which will puddle) then I would put a layer of that down as its ok for the horse's feet

Personally I got a load of 20mm granite chippings a couple of winters ago and simply chucked them down, they have bedded down and the grass has grown over the top and the gateway is rock solid in the worst of weathers, yes a load sank but the surface has stabilised over time and there wasnt any movement after about the second month. I use the gateway to bathe the ponies in too so it gets its fair share of water throughout the year

I am not convinced that granite is ideal for hooves but my two are unshod and don't seem to have suffered

the key is to lay anything before the bad weather hits, if the ground is stable to start with that's half the battle
 
Hi all,

Thanks for your ideas. Have spent some time this weekend working out how many bags of everything I need! One final question - if I just plonk down the hardcore to about 1 foot deep, top it with layer of choice to about 6 inches, then whacker it down, will it sink into the grass enough that it won't look weird? It's quite a narrow path alongside the field & don't want it to be too noticeable. Did your homemade paths/gateways just sink down over time so they don't really stand out?

Thanks again. Having had another quote on Friday for 2.5K & no date in sight, I'm now feeling DIY is definitely the way to go!

D. x
 
diddy said:
Hi all,



I don’t want to hire a digger as I’ve heard they’re quite hard to get the hang of – our access is very restricted & there are lots of trees I could potentially crash into! (This also help explain why no one else wants to come & do it of course!)



D. x
Click to expand...

We have a mini digger and they are very easy to use. Well worth hiring as you can get so much done and can do a much better job. They don't go fast enough to crash into things. They move very slowly and precisely and are very easy to control.

The first time I drove ours I moved the dung heap. That was from never having even sat on one before and having no instruction. I just worked it out what each lever did. If you could get one for a week end you would have plenty of time to learn to use it and then to actually do the work.
Oh and they are the best fun toy to play with ever.
 
We are on clay. My husband has used a mini-digger to dig out the gateways. He has laid a terram membrane and then topped up with a layer of rubble with a layer of smaller stones on top. It is a huge improvement.
 
Just an idea - phone up a mini-digger company and ask them for the contact details of people that regularly hire them as probably one of them would be more than delighted to do this job for you.
 
Have you applied for change of use? You could come unstuck if you haven't - you aren't just allowed to create a gravel path sadly
 
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