Gravel Delivery FAQ: From Choosing the Rock to the Truck Leaving

The decision that sets everything else is the first one: what the material has to do once it is on the ground. Carry a loaded truck, take water away, sit still on a slope, or grow something. Pick that wrong and no amount of tonnage fixes it. The questions below run in the order a Missouri order usually moves through.

Choosing the material for the ground you have

Does it matter that I am in the Ozarks and not up north?

More than almost anything else. On the Ozark plateau the soil is thin, cherty clay over limestone and dolomite, and once you scrape to the subgrade it is firm, so a base course can be thinner than one doing the same job elsewhere. Chert and rock slow the digging more than mud does. North of the Missouri River, loess sits over glacial till and a tight claypan, and water perches on that subsoil from late fall into spring, so the same drive wants more depth, a crowned grade and somewhere for the water to leave. The west-central clay behaves similarly. Bootheel ground is deep sand, silt and heavy clay on nearly level land that drains slowly through ditches. Sinkholes, springs and losing streams across the karst country also change where you send runoff.

Do I want washed rock in this trench, or a mix that binds?

Washed stone drains. 1 inch clean, 3/4 inch clean and drain rock have had the fines taken out, so water travels through the voids between the pieces. Graded mixes build. Base rock at 1 inch minus and crusher run at 3/4 inch minus carry fines that bind the stone into one dense layer. A drive built from clean stone stays loose and migrates to the edges; a French drain packed with a binding mix silts up and stops working.

The gray dust is what does it. In a graded mix the fine material fills the gaps between the larger pieces, and under compaction it locks them together, which is what makes a surface hold a wheel load. In a washed grade those gaps are left open on purpose, because the gaps are the drainage. In this catalogue, clean rock means washed with no fines, so it is not another name for base rock or crusher run.

Can I raise a low corner with topsoil and skip the fill?

No, and swapping them is expensive. Fill Dirt is compactable earth with minimal organic matter, for raising a grade or filling a hole. Top Soil is screened, balanced sand, silt and clay, and belongs in the top few inches where something has to grow. Garden Soil is a compost-enriched blend for raised beds and planting areas. Build low ground with fill, cap it with topsoil, and keep the blend for beds. Putting topsoil in as structural fill gives you a soft spot that settles for years.

How deep the course has to go

Four inches holds a pickup. What about a loaded grain truck?

For cars and light trucks on ground that drains, a compacted course in the region of four inches does the work. Anything loaded, a grain truck, a tandem, a full hay trailer, wants noticeably more, and wants it built in lifts of a few inches at a time rather than one deep dump. Where the subgrade holds water from November into April, thicken it again and fix the drainage first. No depth of rock cures a subgrade that is sitting wet.

Fabric, edges and holding stone on an Ozark slope

Does fabric belong beneath the rock, or is it money wasted?

Under stone on soft or wet ground, usually yes. A geotextile separation fabric stops the subgrade and the stone swapping places, which is the mechanism by which a load of clean rock vanishes into a muddy stretch of lane over one season. Under rip rap on a bank it is standard. Under a decorative bed it keeps the stone from working down into the soil. Fabric is not stocked here, so it comes from a local landscape supplier rather than onto this order. Where it is less useful is under a well drained, firm subgrade that is already carrying traffic, and it does nothing at all for a drainage problem: a wet spot that stays wet all winter needs a route for the water, not another layer.

How do I keep stone from ending up at the bottom of a slope?

Three things do most of the work on an Ozark hillside or a loess bluff. Cut the edges so the course sits in the ground rather than proud of it. Compact in lifts so the layer behaves as one mass instead of loose stone on a firm bottom. And put a shallow cross fall and a lined ditch in, so storm water leaves sideways instead of running the length of the slope. Angular crushed material stays put far better than rounded stone, so a steep drive wants driveway gravel rather than pea gravel.

The pile that is left at the end

Is it worth keeping what is left over?

Usually. Spare base rock or surfacing gravel fills the washouts and ruts that show up after a heavy storm, and a few wheelbarrows of clean rock is handy around a downspout outlet or a soggy gate. Leftover topsoil keeps if it is covered. Mulch and soils are the ones to be realistic about, since they break down and weeds find them. Tip the surplus somewhere it will not wash into a creek or a sinkhole.

The rest of the order lives on two other pages. Units, rounding and how much a cubic yard of a given material weighs come out of the material calculators. What a tandem needs to get down a farm lane, what to sort out before the driver turns up, and what checkout settles are on the delivery page. For a quantity you want checked against an awkward approach, use the contact page.

Who operates Missouri Rock Supply?