Good afternoon all. We are approaching installing additional heavy use areas on the farm. What we have now has been down for two years and it has been incredible. After it taking 6 months last time to find someone that would actually show up to work, we want to attempt the project ourselves this time. Once we remove the 6 inches of topsoil and lay down the geotextile we will need to add the gravel. We were originally told you could not drive on the geotextile without gravel on top, thus you had to backfill your way in with the gravel (if that makes sense). It would save us a ton of time if we could have the dump truck gently back onto the geotextile fabric and dump as he went. Has anyone tried this method? I don’t quite see why the fabric would tear unless there was something underneath the fabric that is not flat or if you were turning maybe? Thoughts and opinions appreciated.
We drove our tractor all over our geo cloth. Not as big as a loaded dump for sure, but it didn’t damage it at all. Maybe the warning is so the truck won’t turn on it–that could tear it I suppose, but we had the dump truck empty his load in a big pile on ours and we spread it from there. Give it a whirl!
Avoid tearing the fabric and you’ll be okay to drive on it to place the gravel. I surmise the driving prohibition is don’t use it as a driveway without gravel.
Thank you both for the input. We are going to give that a try, it will save us a massive amount of time not having to move it all ourselves with the skid steer.
They used geotextile when preparing service roads for the wind farms around here and everyone was driving on it before they put their road base type material on top of it.
They were careful and slow, but drive on it they did, with trucks, loaders and graders.
Has been fine all these years now.
If you use those U wires to keep the cloth down, you may possibly get one in a tire, would be one concern.
[QUOTE=equislover;8229573]
Good afternoon all. We are approaching installing additional heavy use areas on the farm. What we have now has been down for two years and it has been incredible. After it taking 6 months last time to find someone that would actually show up to work, we want to attempt the project ourselves this time. Once we remove the 6 inches of topsoil and lay down the geotextile we will need to add the gravel. We were originally told you could not drive on the geotextile without gravel on top, thus you had to backfill your way in with the gravel (if that makes sense). It would save us a ton of time if we could have the dump truck gently back onto the geotextile fabric and dump as he went. Has anyone tried this method? I don’t quite see why the fabric would tear unless there was something underneath the fabric that is not flat or if you were turning maybe? Thoughts and opinions appreciated.[/QUOTE]
I drove over mine with the tractor and it did not tear or stretch the geotex. Of course, keep an eye on it and don’t make any turns or go bouncing around at speed. Depending on the tractor, tires, and ground underneath, there is always a chance of doing damage. It might be worth driving over a spare piece a few times and carefully inspecting it for fiber damage - I appreciate the investment you have here.
David
This is such a relief to hear. I’m no longer dreading it as much as I was. ha! Either way however it would have been worth it. Not dredging thru mud is priceless. I know the horses appreciate it too. We will proceed carefully!
