A relative has about 80m² of gravelled areas around their house. Over the years, the gravel has become very muddy, and is now coverered with weeds.
Is there a cost effective way of washing gravel? I've tried putting it in a handheld steel sieve sloshing it around in wheelbarrow of water, but that was very slow, and generated large quantities of muddy water.
I suppose I could just put a membrane on top of it, followed by more gravel, but I'd like to re-use the existing stuff.
Stick in a heap and run a hose over it.
mark
On Sunday 30 June 2013 18:17 wrote in uk.d-i-y:
The railways have ballast washers - so it's not a totally alien idea. But I have not heard of a protable machine for gravel.
You don't need to wash it. Simply use a sieve with a mesh size slightly smaller than the gravel and sieve the dirt out. It is time consuming and you will end up with a surprisingly large pile of dirt, but it works.
Colin Bignell
Bung it in a concrete mixer for a few rotations? Pour out through a suitably sized sieve, over a container for the water (barrel?) bucket some of the water back from the barrel to the mixer and add a bucket of clean. Excess water will overflow and drain away.
Hire a cement mixer?
Why not just rake the stones out, leaving the soil and weeds behind?
You will probably need some extra gravel to replace the stuff that is buried deep in the soil, but if your main aim is to separate the stones from the soil then a garden rake should do it.
Cheers
Dave R
Just been through this thought process myself. We have 750 sq metres of pea shingle that was very mucky - I decided that although theoretically washing it was possible, the labour involved wasn't worth it. We stripped it all off and piled it up in the field - a big heap . So we've used as much as we could in bedding for new drains etc (total house refurbishment 98% finished) - also put in a land drain in the farm yard and another scheduled o go into the field in a boggy bit. Then currently I've a 20 ton pile of new pea shingle waiting to be spread tomorrow, and no doubt we'll need another
10 or 20 tons to finish the job. At least it means that the land drains are very adequately surrounded by shingle!AWEM
somewhere like machine mart sold a rotary sieve thingy, something stupid like 200 squids, and something that could possibly be knocked up fairly easily.
It was a cylinder of mesh, i think it had a metal spider at one end, to which it attached to the frame via a bearing, a motor to the side drove it around like a cement mixer, cylinder on an incline... bung a shovel full of mixed crap in the open end, it's rotated around and the muck drops thru the mesh into a barrow below, and the good stuff falls out the back in a separate heap.
Wonder if someone could make up a sieve barrel or a cement mixer, just pop the cement mixing barrel off, pop the sieve cylinder on, away you go.
+1 dont waste the time.
If you need to dig out old, then add new.
Every kitchen has one - or an old one lying outside, in many places.
Make this.
En el artículo , Andrew Mawson escribió:
Are you planning to put a membrane down first?
That's pretty damned good.
Possibly easier to make a long chute with a mesh base and send the gravel down that. For most people, probably easier to store for next time too. It is a job that needs to be done every few years.
Colin Bignell
Am I being stupid but surely if it was spread out over a path/drive the rai n would wash it eventually assuming the crap had been raked out of it, and its going to need raked to get it level anyway.
On 01/07/2013 09:03, fred wrote: ...
The problem is wind-blown dirt, which only washes down to the weed control membrane, where it makes a nice base for weeds to grow in. Once every few years you need to remove that dirt, or you may as well not have a membrane.
Colin Bignell
+1
and its also dirt that comes off car tyres as well. I've got 3"+ of limestone and 2" of gravel on tyop, and ten years on its full of mud and decayed organic material.
path clear sorts the weeds out. every ten years or so it needs more gravel on top. As the cars grind the sub base deeper into the subsoil
Add that to the already long list of ways in which gravel drives suck.
e rain would wash it eventually assuming the crap had been raked out of it, and its going to need raked to get it level anyway.
Yes. My experience of them was poor. Gravel accumulating on the outside of the bend etc because 'kids' dont slow down. Tried snow blade on Westwood to level it. Waste of time. Gave up and had it tarmacadamed. Haven't looked b ack since.
I do prefer the appearance of gravel but it was too much trouble.
Never had trouble with dirt on it though did have to replace gravel every s o often.
I found weed suppressing membrane a wast of time. Weeds will grow anywhere.
After a short period of time sufficient dust builds up on the mambrane to g ive weed some purchase.
Many years ago neighbour followed advice from website as to depths and type s of different gravel to use for a 'good' job. Can't remember the figures b ut his car sank 3" into it the first time he drove over it. Somebody goofed somewhere,
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