Does anybody have experience with using crushed asphalt on lane ways or the aisles of stables? Wondering how slippery it is. How is the durability and is it low maintenance and easy to sweep?
I was planning on topping off driveway with gravel but this is the same price. Thought it might make a decent surface (not muddy!) to make a lane to lead to arena.
OK - let me hear the good, the bad and the ugly:)
Any info much appreciated.
When they resurfaced the expressway, they sold that old crushed asphalt to anyone.
Our county got mountains of it, that they started laying on county streets and roads.
They found out soon it would not hold together and developed potholes right away.
Without being laid properly with hot tar, etc., that loose stuff really never compacts properly.
They started mixing it with other, whatever was handy, crushed caliche, screenings, crushed concrete, plain dirt and that worked much better.
I would get someone that knows how to use that to put it down for you, not someone that is clueless, or you too will have a nice area full of potholes.
Our parking lot in front of the barn is the screenings left over from the crushed asphalt, that they were giving away for the hauling, much better for that than the crushed asphalt itself, but weeds and grass will grow in that, unlike on real asphalt.
If you want asphalt, go with the real thing, that will last you much longer, especially if you won’t have the continuous traffic on it city streets and highways have.
Our vet used plain highway asphalt on his vet clinic extension aisle and stalls and seems to like it.
Some of the people that work for them think the regular concrete in the older barns is better.
Will see what others experiences are with that.
Bluey, are you saying it is better to use new asphalt than recycled. Do you think that it isn’t too slick for horses being ridden back and forth to the arena? I think I need to find some that is down so I can put my feet on it.
Regular street asphalt paving also comes in different smoothness, some pebbly, some slicker.
Maybe someone that knows more will be able to tell us about this better.
yeah… no on straight asphalt. pavement is pavement unless its 100 degrees out. Here in CA that crushed stuff off the roads is nice. Yes… it will get pot holes… just like gravel, but it doesn’t tend to drift like gravel. Its also kinder to feet than road base or similar. Becomes quite flat over time.
Recycled asphalt can be used as a base layer and compacted,
If it is used in a surface/road application, it usually has a fresh asphalt skim coat applied over top and then the whole thing is compressed by a steamroller.
I believe it can be re-melted and mixed with fresh asphalt, again compression is key to success and longevity .
I LOVE that crushed recycled asphalt stuff. I’ve never seen it used or smoothed into anything resembling an aisle, but it ROCKS for gateways and in sheds and other places where horses hang out and you don’t want mud. In Colorado, I think it was free or cheap and people in the know would go pick it up from the highway department.
We use it all over the place, too.
IME, you need to get DOUBLE crushed asphalt, that is ground into finer “pieces”. We have gotten a few loads of the single crushed, and it has LOTS of thick dinner-plate sized chunks of “roadway” in it. The finer pieces still pack down, but the big chunks never do, and float around on top until you pick them up and toss them elsewhere. I don’t like the big pieces, as I fear they will injure a hoof or trip a horse.
Single crushed can be found locally (in SoMD) for free or a few hundred per double-axle dumptruck load. The double crushed usually runs $300+ and often has to be delivered from further away, as suppliers that double-crush are few and far between.
I love that stuff. We buy it and use it anywhere you would want to use rock or limestone. It’s on our driveway, around gates, feeders, in the run in sheds. we make sure it is clean, and we buy the smaller pieces. It doesn’t last forever, as the horses do hoof it down to where we need to add more, but it does work and it’s affordable. It’s great though and it beats the heck out of mud, and our driveway looks great. If you can water it down, it packs better.
We got it for free from the town highway department. We aren’t using it for horses, but we laid it down as a driveway that we will later do something with. It was laid down in the fall, rolled over and plowed up slightly over the winter, but it is starting to compact down nicely now. Look at local
highway departments, sometimes they have it available and just want to
unload it for free. It’s hit or miss though so if they don’t have any available ask if they are expecting to have any in the near future. We stock piled it on the property when they had it to
use in the future. We had to pick up and truck it ourselves but it’s a lot cheaper than having someone out to pave.
Thanks all, this has been very helpful. I will ask about double crushing.
Does it get super icy in the winter? I’m told it doesn’t drain and I don’t need a skating rink for the horses ha ha!
I have used it and have some negative experiences with it. it was cheap and clean of debris so I tried it. I put it in one paddock around the gate and shed.
It is very abrasive. the horse I keep in there is pretty active, but still he wore down a pair of shoes in one 6 week setting, every single time on that stuff.
It smells like tar on hot summer days. not horrible, but not something I’d prefer to have.
it does pack down some especially with time, but there is no way it would be sweepable unless you rolled it out with a roller, and then it might be slippery.
I went back to crushed limestone after my experiment with it, even though that costs 3 times as much here.
RAP, (recycled asphalt roadway) can leach pollutants into your soil and surface water if you dump it willy nilly around your farm.
It is meant to be combined with new asphalt and or used as road base.
I would think if that were true, that it’s use would be restricted here where I live. I am in the Potomac & Chesapeake Bay watershed, and the state has tons of regs regarding runoff. We have to have a Nutrient Management Plan for our manure, and even have to store the dumpster under cover from rain.
Crushed asphalt is used EVERYWHERE down here, it is rare to see a gravel or dirt driveway of any length. Most all of them are crushed asphalt. We are also allowed to use it on surfaces that children are on - paths, walkways, etc. I would think if it were that harmful, it would have an MSDS and regulations to monitor it’s useage.
Several studies that conducted TCLP analysis (required analyses for hazardous waste determination) on stockpiles of RAP do not indicate it is hazardous
http://vtrc.virginiadot.org/rsb/RSB4.pdf
http://www.beyondroads.com/visual_as…lity_Study.PDF
https://www.wisconsin.edu/waste-rese…ent%5B1%5D.pdf
Most recycled waste is also exempt under RCRA. Individual states may be more restrictive, so I suggest talking with your state environmental program personnel about it’s use in your area.
As neversaynever suggests, it is best to check your local EPA guidelines. RAP use is restricted in some places, and for some applications.
I’ve just had my gravel driveway scraped, leveled, and resurfaced with the recycled asphalt. Some of it is very fine, some of it is “regular” gravel-size (I don’t know all the different sizes…by regular I mean about 1-2" in length). In the whole 1200’ of driveway, there were only about 4 chunks of any size, all around 6" in diameter.
We are in a really dry spell right now. It doesn’t seem to be very dusty, certainly not as dusty as my driveway was before, but I’ve also put up a 5 mph speed limit sign and let people know I expect them to adhere to it. I’ll be interested to see what it does with rain, which isn’t in the forecast for another several days.
Now, to get to your question…I can’t imagine it being used as a “sweepable” surface. The stuff in my driveway is like fine gravel. I can see that it holds together better than gravel, but it isn’t like regular asphalt. You see the tread marks from tires in it. You can dig a hole in it with the toe of your shoe.
Hope this helps.
We have rotomill driveways and a big apron of it in front of our garage. We rented a big roller and compacted it pretty firmly, and it has held up pretty well. It’s cheap and reasonably easy to keep in good repair, and is easy to plow/blow snow off without taking off too much surface, as can happen with gravel. Sweepable it is not by any stretch of the imagination, but it is also not slippery.
Funny story… ours came off the interstate. A couple of summers ago we noticed a hare that would lope up our driveway at roughly the same time every evening, while we were having dinner on the porch, and stop in the same place and appear to lick or nibble at the driveway surface. We reckon it must have been flavored by all the roadway salt that gets used around here.
One day as we were watching said hare, a quite new baby deer who was wobbling around the yard under the watchful eye of his mother walked up to him and nosed him. That hare turned round a slapped that fawn upside the head! Curiosity doesn’t always pay…
With the questions about sweeping and it getting icy, I wonder if the OP doesn’t think that this recycled asphalt is going to be laid and paved like real asphalt?
OP - unless you’re leaving something out here, buying recycled asphalt means it comes all crushed up, just like driveway gravel would. It will be little rocks. It gets spread in the driveway area and you drive on it like regular gravel.
Now, if a company is claiming they will come and asphalt your driveway and use recycled materials for less, that’s different. But, if the recycled asphalt is being offered at the same price as gravel… It’s gonna come and get put down just like gravel.
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