Maintaining Your Gravel Driveway

Keeping your gravel driveway in tip-top shape can sometimes take a back seat to other outdoor home improvement projects. However, without proper care and attention, a gravel driveway can soon be filled with potholes, have uneven gravel rock, and cause drainage issues. Allow Garrity Stone, Inc. of Indianapolis to give you a few tips for maintaining your gravel driveway.

1. Repair potholes immediately.

If you don’t have a sturdy garden rake, invest in one. You want to repair potholes as you see them form, so they don’t have the opportunity to grow into mammoth holes in your driveway.

Home Guides gives the following advice:

“Repair potholes by making the opening wider and deeper, going all the way to the base of the driveway, if possible. Add large coarse gravel into the bottom of the pothole with a shovel. Pack it down with a hand tamper. Add a layer of medium-sized gravel into the hole and tamp it down as well. Top off the pothole with a layer of smaller, crushed gravel. Tamp this layer in place.”

2. Grade your driveway gravel twice a year.

“Grading” is the process of smoothing out uneven surfaces and filling in potholes. It also requires breaking up gravel that has compacted together. Grading usually requires specific tools or tractors, so many homeowners opt to have this service done professionally.

3. Remove debris and weeds.

Unwanted weeds and fall leaves can really do damage to driveway gravel. For weeds, you can either pull them by hand, or you can apply a safe herbicide to kill deep-rooted weeds. The easiest way to remove leaves is to use a leaf blower, but you may also decide to hand rake them. (If you do rake, make sure you smooth out the gravel rock after getting rid of the leaves.)

4. Monitor the driveway for drainage issues.

Great Day Home Improvements says, "The solution is either to add enough gravel to make your drive higher than the areas surrounding it, or to install a culvert or ditch to pull the water away from the place where it flows over the gravel and compromises it." This way, rain water runs out and doesn’t puddle up, creating gravel driveway damage.

Garrity Stone, Inc. has quality aggregate products, as well as a variety of gravel rocks and other products, to help you keep your driveway well maintained. To inquire about the types of gravel driveway rock we carry or to calculate how much you might need, call us at 317-546-0893.