Ballast vs gravel on driveway...

[JD]

Opinions please... I need to order a load of balast for some concreting work. I estimate having a few hundred kg of the stuff left over. I have a bare earth driveway that needs re-gravelling. Would the surplus ballast be okay for using on the drive, instead of 20mm gravel? It's mainly to stop one's feet getting muddy on the winter. It occurred to me that ballast might actually be preferable to gravel, because gravel is so loose that it gets shifted around too easily, and is unpleasane to walk accross, IMO.

TIA

JD

[Martin Bonner]

recommends 130mm DTp type 1 sub-base followed by 20-40mm depth of gravel. (For 20mm gravel, you'll want towards the top end of that.)

Depending on the ballast it might look fine as a visible surface, or it might look crap.

[dennis]

Gravel will move about under foot or tyre. Crushed stone won't once its bedded down, hence the ballast on railway tracks is crushed stone.

[Brian Gaff]

Well it tends to get pushed in and spaced apart until it sinks to the level of the soil and grass grows. I was always told that its fine under the gravel, but the gravel is needed to keep the area relatively weed free and to drain well. I gues its suck it and see, probably depends on the type of soil. Brian

[Adrian]

If it's properly compacted, it won't be. We had a big chunk of the drive done a few months back - and there's absolutely no movement at all. But it was done properly, by competent people with vibro-plates and a big roller.

[Kevin]

What's emerged from the discussion on this question is that there are two meanings of ballast: the stuff used to stabilise sleepers on railway tracks (granite or limestone, 40mm ish across) and the builders' merchant term for "all-in", that is a graded mixture of gravel from the nominal size (often 20mm or 10mm) down to "sharp sand". Purists will insist on making concrete from cement, sharp sand, and gravel in, say,

1:2.5:4 proportion; many of us, constructing floors not test cubes, find it easier to buy "all-in ballast" and use it at 1:5 or 6 ish. I think that's what the OP intends to do, and was asking about using the leftover all-in as a drive surface. I wouldn't - I think it will resemble a rather poor beach and trample inside dreadfully.