Damp ground and tracks

[dredger99]

Hello to all you swoggers

I have recently managed to clear a path for the truck, and i now have almost full access to my wood (only after my not so neighbourly neighbour asked me not to use his track )
There are a couple of bits that don't drain very well and the tracks are starting to get deep.
The solution i am trying is this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Grass-Pavers- ... 4d1ebb8440

It's a bit labour intensive but not to bad just now because we have recently had a lot of rain so the ground is especially soft but at £80 odd for 5 sq meters it's getting expensive.

Do any of you have any likewise experience or advice with dealing with this sort of thing?

Dregder99

[davetb]

I have spent lots of time and similar plastic devices on my wet wood.
I would suggest letting the ruts develop a bit then putting old bricks in the ruts on the flat bits, and 'halved' paving stones on the ruts on the hills. It's been great. It ends up as paved ruts and after about a year you can't tell there's bricks in them. Once you need old bricks you start seeing lots of skips with bricks everywhere. I currently have about 100 metres of paved ruts and lots of unpaved ones. In my wood only one side needs paved as the other rut is usually much drier and once one rut is paved the wheels don't spin in the other one.

[Wendelspanswick]

I have 2 access tracks up the hill to my wood. One is short and steep and my 2 WD van can only get up it in dry periods, the other longer and shallower track which can be used nearly all year round adds about 10 minutes to the journey because of the further distance and the amount of gates. I say nearly all year round as after a heavy rainfall a lot of silt gets washed onto the track and here is where I found that snow chains are invaluable. They are a pain to fit and take off but it was £45 well spent.
We do haves a 4 WD Hyundai now but that is the wife's daily driver so it's only available to me at weekends.

All our access tracks were either laid by the National Trust or the local authority and use Scalpings, mixed stone from the local quarry and they blend in well to the surroundings. The trouble with using bricks and paving slabs is it looks unsightly and if can be seen from a local road seems to encourage fly tipping as a lot of the farmers who have used rubble in their gateways have found out.
It's been along time since I bought any but I seem to remember that 16 ton of Scalpings delivered and tipped was in the region of £180, and it goes along way.

[Dexter's Shed]

the bridge we built and first part of our woods was getting a bit slippery, so after much thought and pricing up, we took the old rubble/brick option, as already stated, it works great and ours cannot be seen from any roads or footpaths that may have mr public

[davetb]

The bricks in my ruts are laid perfectly next to each other in the rut.in effect I'm paving the base of the rut. Bricks are about 215 mm long ( and 105mm wide), my tyres are 265mm wide. Each brick sits beautifully in the ruts and will give me another 105mm length per rut. For example if you have 100 bricks you can pave about 11 metres of a single rut or 2 ruts for 5.5 metres. The leaves / soil fall back into the rut and it's impossible to see which ruts are paved and which aren't. I pave it with 2 bricks perpendicular to the next 2.
I don't pave it until the ruts are much deeper than the depth of the brick. It still leaves a rut to drive in.
Roughly, if each line represents a brick
||=||=||=||=||=||=||=||=||=||=||= and continue in this way up the rut.
Unfortunately I have no photo but will take one when I'm next there.

[dredger99]

Some excellent advice there guys.
I have 15sq mt of the plastic track i mentioned previous being delivered this week and i intend laying some if not all this weekend.
I have already put down 10 sq mt worth and some of it seems to be working well and some not so well but i will keep you updated as to how i get on.
Funnily enough davetb i have my eye on an old mound of bricks that i spotted the other week, now i have another reason to get them.
I will try to take some pics to show how the track looks layed.

[The Barrowers]

Just bought £50 of MOT type 1 to fill in holes on track originally laid as stone track by Woodlands.Co.Uk Looks good and we will see how it goes I ton doesn't go a long way

B and T

[ballibeg]

£50 a tonne? Is that delivered? I collect a tonne at a time for £20.

Dave

[Wendelspanswick]

£50 a tonne? Is that delivered? I collect a tonne at a time for £20.

Dave

A large portion of that £50 will be delivery, it's works out a hell of a lot cheaper per tonne if you buy a lorry load.

[Bulworthy Project]

We paid £16 per tonne delivered on a 20 tonne load of "75-40 Crusher Run" last time we got some. 20 tonnes goes quite a long way but never as far as you'd think.