Driveway building

[fivebucks]

We have a small cabin up north that we access with ATV. We are looking at putting in a driveway that would be good for fulltime use. The dream is to retire there and build a house. We would like to do that in steps and the first is a road and electric. Does anyone have experience in having that done? The driveway would be about 1500 ft with some elevation changes so we will need some fill and a couple of culverts. We would not be able to scrap down too much so the bulk of the fill would need to be trucked in. There would be some tree and stump removal also. The nearest gravel pit is within a half hour drive. We got a quote from a local guy who does do a good road as I've seen his work. I just want to get a feel for a ballpark price. Should this be a $10k job, $20k, $30k?

Thanks for any input.

[Tom7227]

Way off your question but you may want to consider a few other things before you get started. Don't mean to preach but experience tells me to check.

Check with a well driller and make sure that you can get decent water there at a reasonable price.

Check with a septic person to see if there's going to be any problems in getting a perk test to pass and a system installed.

Check with the electric company and find out what it will take to get a line run to the buildings.

Check with the County and any local unit of government to make sure there are not restrictions on what you can build, where you can build it etc.

These items could end up costing a lot of dough and have to be considered as part of the budget if you're going to build.

Good luck with your project.

[fivebucks]

Thanks Tom. I did get the electric bid. All the neighbors have wells without a problem so I am assuming we will not have a problem. Our building site would be within 1/4 mile of 3 different wells. I don't know if a well guy could say for sure without getting his truck and drill back there - hence the road. Can they tell from the land itself? As far as the septic I figured if push comes to shove we may have to do a holding tank. The other neighbors perked out OK. I appreciate the comments as they are very good. We've had the property 10 years so there has been plenty of time to think of these things. I am definately open to any and all comments. Thanks.

[MinnesotaMike]

FiveBucks,

I had a gravel road put in up at my property in Grand Rapids.

It took about 12 months to get all of the permits and what not before we could get the work done. This was across a hayfield, no tree removal. I had a local contractor ( smaller guy ) bid along with the big boys. The smaller guy came in at half the price. I went with him. He started the work and figured he didn't have to do most of what he bid so he only charged 1/2 of the original bid. 900' of driveway, put in four or so years ago and is still in great shape.

You mentioned low land and culverts.

That tells me wetland. Talk to the soil and water conservation people for your county. They will come out and see what is wetland and what is not.. You will also have to formulate a plan for mitigation if you are destroying wetland.

Don't think that it is not wetland because it is not wet all the time. There are five different types of wetlands, you can see them with explainations on the DNR site.

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile.

Good Luck,

Mike

[fivebucks]

Mike,

Thanks. We would be in Itasca Cty as I assume you are. We won't be getting into wetlands as the road will stay up on ridges. I know of all the paperwork with wetlands when we got a permit for a pond on some other land. We would just need the culverts to keep the rain water flowing to where it is supposed to flow. I know we needed permits to build a building and privy but when we put in our small road (ATV trail) at the same time I never came across anything about needing a road permit. What was the permit you needed for and what was it called?

Thanks for the reply.

[MinnesotaMike]

Yes, We are in Itasca Cty.

I don't know the name of the permit, the contractor took care of that part. I know we had to provide a site map showing where we were going to put the road and where the " wetland " was.

As my neighbor says:

It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Good Luck,

Mike

[fivebucks]

That is so true. I have the appl. for the power and they ask for a site map. I will check with the builder.

[delcecchi]

Yes, We are in Itasca Cty.

I don't know the name of the permit, the contractor took care of that part. I know we had to provide a site map showing where we were going to put the road and where the " wetland " was.

As my neighbor says:

It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Good Luck,

Mike

I am not so sure the quote applies when dealing with wetlands. You might want to check it out.

here is a link from Itasca county

http://www.itascaswcd.org/Wetlands.htm

[deerminator]

I would think more toward the 10K range but it all depends. We had a 800 foot class 5 driveway about 15 foot wide put in 7 years ago. I'd have to recheck the contract but I think it was between 5 and 10 Gs and that included clearing trees (with a bulldozer) and not removing them as well as a thick carpet between the earth and gravel. They built it up pretty good through the low, wet spots with no culverts. It's held up great with an occassional load of class 5 to fill in the potholes about every other year. After a couple of years you might want to consider crushed granite over the "problem spots" where you routinely get potholes or the washboard effect. It costs about 5 times as much as class 5 but it holds up much, much better and pays off in the long term.

[fivebucks]

The quote I got is a fair amount higher so that's why this post. He said there will be 100 dump trucks or so for my drive and that's why the high cost. I don't know if the 100 dump trucks is an exaggeration or a close figure. I know most of the area will be built up a couple of feet with one spot built up 10 ft. Thanks for the input.

[TooTallTom]

Something that's worth having one quote or bid for is worth having multiples for. As one of the other posters said, big guys and little guys can have very different fees for the same project.

[deerminator]

Ok, 100 loads is quite a bit I would say. I just had two loads delivered and spread to get our problem spots with a skid loader for a little over $300 and that's a very fair price I would say. They were here for almost an hour an a half smoothing things out with the loader. So I could see 100 loads plus all the labor involved running higher than 10Gs. It just all depends and I would get another bid or two. We got a good price on our drive because it was part of a package deal in building our house (well, septic, drive, tree removal, utilities and so on.) Good luck!

[titelines]

Don't know if this will help or not, but FWIW:

We also got a package deal as the excavator did the driveway, prepared the cabin and garage building sites and the septic mound at the same time. We cut all the trees and cleared the brush (we wanted to), but they did everything else. All told, it was about 20k.

For comparison, our driveway is 320' and we had two building sites. Really no problem with dips or culverts, put down a layer of boulders, then gravel, then class IV. 5 years and still rock solid.

[Tom7227]

A friend tried the 'ask for forgiveness rather than permission" on the digging thing and ended up in a two year battle with the Army Corp and Board of Water and Soil and it cost him bucks for a lawyer and an expert in land use stuff. Plus they put a lien or something on his property. About drove him crazy in the process.

[fivebucks]

Thanks for the replies. My bid was for 25k and that guy owns the pit. I will contact the cty and make sure on the land use. I know we have no wetland issues although a wetland would be within 70 yards. If I want to do it this summer I need to book the guy this winter as he fills up. Thanks!

[Down Deep]

You could act as your own contractor. There are lots of people around who own dozers, excavators and dumps. 4 or 5 years ago I had low area filled in for a parking area built behind my house that required 30 11yd dumps of pit run. I hired a retired heavy equipment operator to do the job. The whole job which required removal of about 50 trees, gravel and grading was $2K, $375 for fuel and a 12 pack for him and his driver.