Drive dump truck over lawn?

[princetonroom]

I am getting 5 tons of modified (crushed) stone delivered via dump truck for a patio. I already have the area excavated, so most convenient would be for the truck to dump right in the hole...but would require driving over the rest of the lawn to get there. It's a small(er) truck, but I still wonder if it is going to destroy the lawn, especially since it rained hard last night. Any suggestions? I really don't feel like transporting 5 tons of stone by myself if I don't have to.

Thanks,

[Steve Barker]

You're looking at somewheres in the neighborhood of 20,000 lbs of weight, (and that's with a real small truck) on 6 tire with a contact area of approx 50 sq inches per tire. So that's about 66 lbs per square inch. And remember, the back is probably carrying more than the front, so the number may be closer to 100 lbs per square inch. You're gonna have some nice ruts unless the ground is just rock hard dried out.

s

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Good chance for a couple of tire ruts. I'd rather fix that than move 5 tones of stone by hand.

[Ernie Willson]

Generally speaking truckers take no responsibility for your lawn. I once paid more for cleanup than for the cement that was delivered. I live in the Princeton NJ area, and it looks like you might too. Due to the recent rain the ground here will be wet here for at least another month. I'd put off the delivery until the ground was dry. Failing that I'd have the truck only enter my yard on temporary roadway...something like large boards (to distribute the load).

If you can't do either then perhaps you could hire a small lawn maintenance/landscaping company to move the stone by wheelbarrow (on boards) across your lawn. It should be only about 75 wheelbarrow trips.

Because of their smaller tires, small trucks can actually do more damage than larger trucks.

HTH,

EJ in NJ

[dpb]

Red Green wrote: ...

Yeah, them leeches are real buggers this time of year... :)

--

[John Grabowski]

*In addition to what others said, I would be concerned about underground utilities and sprinkler systems if those are in the designated path of the dump truck.

[Red Green]

[e-mail] wrote in news:d5185ccd-3ef4-4733-9996-26d4da4df48f@

21g2000vbk.googlegroups.com:

Others mentioned the rut issue. No one mentioned what's under the lawn. Under no conditions run it over a septic system/leech field.

[stan]

Yes ruts. But filling them in and letting the grass grow back over next couple of months may be a small price to pay!

It's only a bit of soil and some grass after all! Grass is expendable and regrowable; in fact some horticulturists suggest that grass is a waste of time, effort etc. and recommend seeding with clover instead. Clover puts nutrients back into the soil and needs less cutting.

Trying to move tons of crushed stone by hand/wheelbbarrow etc. is heavy work!

Putting down some old pieces of plywood etc. might help spread the weght of truck tyres.

Buying crushed stone to be delived by a 'Stone Slinger' truck would presumably be more costly?

[RicodJour]

Or tree roots. Avoid driving under the dripline of trees.

R

[Steve Barker]

HUH!?

[EXT]

I have done it in the past, but only over summer hardened clay soil, even then the truck(s) made some depressions and tore the grass up in sheets. Make sure there is nothing in the ground that can be crushed by the truck driving over it. Do not do this if the soil is filled and not virgin ground or if it has rained recently as you may have the responsibility of paying a tow truck to remove the original truck if it gets stuck. Hopefully the tow truck doesn't also get stuck or tear the place up.

Actually, 5 tons is nothing, having often relocated 10 to 12 ton loads by wheelbarrow. It all depends on how much you dislike real work.

[RicodJour]

This is news to you...?

Most of a tree's roots are near the surface. I still can't believe this is news to you. Are you joking?

R

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Use plywood sheets. I did that when drilling rig for water well came over my yard out at my cabin. it helped minimize tire ruts.

[princetonroom]

Thanks for the replies. Yep, i'm in the princeton area and we did get quite a bit of rain recently. I have several 16" wide plywood boards, taht I think are actually OSB, 1/2" thick. I have enough to lay out probably 50 feet at a time in parallel tracks for each tire, so might need to move them once during the dump. Do you think they would be sturdy enough to distribute the weight and avoid ruts? The big problem is that they would need to cross my neighbor's lawn too - and while they've said it would be okay, I don't want to be fixing their lawn for the next 2 months as that might annoy them just a bit. thanks again.

[Ernie Willson]

All I can say is that using the plywood will help. Unfortunately there are just too many unknowns to make a firm statement. Most likely it will be OK. The only acid test I know is to watch carefully as the truck moves over the boards. If problems develop send the truck back and dump the load for moving manually.

If your soil is like my "Princeton Shale" it is like soup when wet, but it sets up like concrete when dry. When it is dry you can bounce bowling balls off it. This is why I think you may be wise to wait till the soil drys out.

I'd be very careful about the neighbors lawn..these things have habit of becoming nasty when things go wrong.

HTH...Good luck.

EJ in Montgomery

[Red Green]

[e-mail] wrote in news:55b6cc2b-47f6-4ba8-8c6b- [e-mail]:

Personally I would GUESS it would turn 1/2" into splinters...especially if soil was not hard.

Not good. Whole 'nother story.

until they see what actually results. Did you overtly tell them ruts will occur? Did they specifically say if they do occur you have to do nothing to restore it? If anything under neighbors lawn can be/is damaged, what then?

[Ernie Willson]

Another thought..I think 1 inch of plywood would certainly do the job. You could double it up in 25 ft runs, and I think you would be OK.

YMMV,

EJ in NJ

[princetonroom]

Thank you again for all the replies. The neighbor said that she doesn't really care too much about her lawn (if you can believe that). And I said that I would work my best to fix any damage, should any occur. Perhaps I will double up the plywood to 1" thick and see what happens. Moving the plywood several times is going to be a hell of a lot easier than moving 5 tons of crushed stone via wheelbarrow. And afterwards, I don't care about the plywood at all - I bought it pretty much to sacrifice. Another bonus is that I have 2 pallets of concrete pavers coming in before the stone - and they use a heavy duty forklift - so I can see how that fares before increasing the weight to a full truck. thx...I'll let you know how it turns out. Jus curious

- anyone know approx how many wheelbarrow trips it would take to move

5 tons of crushed stone anyway?

[Jon Danniken]

It's only three and half yards of gravel. If OP buys a wheelbarrow, only loads it halfway, and spreads the work out over a week, it's not that big of a deal.

If it is too much for the OP to handle on his own, school is almost out, and there are a lot of young guys and burley girls running around who would LOVE to make fifty bucks for a half day's work. Tell them they make ten bucks an hour, and if it takes them less than five hours they get the whole fifty.

Jon

[Ernie Willson]

I think you may have more of a problem with the wheel loading from the forklift truck than the stone delivery truck. Nonetheless I think 1 inch of plywood will handle it.

A wheelbarrow will hold about 1 cubic foot. A cubic foot of stone weighs about 150 pounds. 10000 lbs divided by 150 lbs/wheelbarrow gives us about 65 loads. I had estimated about 75 in an earlier post.

HTH,

EJ in NJ