I have a >1/8 mile gravel drive. I could dump 100 tons of gravel on it each year (if I could afford it), because the gravel sinks into the soil. I live in a wet area (central indiana). So this is what I'm thinking of doing...I want to put a fabric of some sort on top of the existing gravel and then dump yet another 100 tons on it....in hopes that this thing will quit sinking...to the questions:

Can I put this fabric on top of existing stone?

Do I need to dig out some of the current stone? 6"? 12"? at all? or all of it? I would guess this thing has nearly 2+ feet of stone on it now...if I dig it out, what do I dig it out with?

Who makes a good fabric for this purpose? how much is this fabric?

Any other ideas short of paving this thing?

I've seriously thought of paving or putting this thing in concrete....if I decide to do that 10 years from now...is there anything I need to watch for (that I'm doing now) that can help down the road....if I do pave?

Thanks for the help...and the closest forum I found to put this in is landscaping, if you think it needs to go elsewhere let me know and I'll repost...

Here is some of the stuff I've read about, but the only quote I've found is upwards of $6000 a mile. From the text, you should be able to pave over it with asphalt as well, I didn't see any reference to poured concrete.

http://www.usfabricsinc.com/products/wovenstabilization.shtml

I'm going to venture a guess that the roadway was created by dumping stone on top of the ground to create a path. If that is the case, the soil, now mixed with stone, is holding all of the water and it never properly drains. No matter what you do, paving, concrete or just dumping more stone on it, the water will still be there creating mud. What needs to happen is dig out the top soil, install a base with larger ballast stone, compact them, install finer stone on top and compact that. Without a place for the water to drain, you are just making mud soup. In your case, lumpy mud soup. A proper paving job will require the same type of base.

It's possible that the soil under your drive is organic soil, and if so, it is highly compressible. If that's the case, then the more stone you dump on top of it, the faster it will sink, almost endlessly, depending on how deep it is. If it's organic soil (usually almost black in color, and kinda stinky), then it should be removed, and the drive should be filled with good soil, and then stone as prescribed by Maintenance 6.

Thanks, that's the kind of fabric I've been looking for.

For my area, I would say that about 6" down it is more or less a grayish clay. But I'm sure there is at least 18" probably more like 24" of stone. It's highly unlikely that I'll be able to dig it all up to get to the top soil that was there 20years ago.

I'm think of diggin down ~12", putting down 2-3" of fill dirt (on top of the remaining old stone to give a smoothe surface for this fabric), then put 10" of #2 stone, and then lastly 2-3" of #8's.

Does that sound reasonable...? Or is there a better version/variation of this? I may ask the fabric people their opinion. I would think they should know and would want their product to suceed for their customers.