Soil cement. Anyone used it in dry lots?

[BroncoMo]

id176.pdf

My dry lots need some low spots built up, but some are pretty deep and need substantial help to keep water running off somewhere appropriate and reduce mud. The standard of putting down grids, rock, various size aggregate, topped off with expensive stone dust is not in the budget.

I have access to “road base”, which I realize is a broad term. It is essentially coarse sand that has previously packed nicely to form driving pads; it is successfully used for actual dirt road maintenance in the area. I brought some in to build up in the inside of a run in shed and fill a low spot in front of another. I packed the shed with a vibrating plate, and ran over the outside pad with my skid steer (which has worked in the past). Neither project has stayed particularly hard packed, and it could be some human error with my attempt to pack it. I certainly did not water it while packing, so that may be the source of failure…

Regardless of human error likely being the catalyst for the partial failure listed above, I’m wanting to entertain a solution that may (more closely) guarantee success this summer when I try again on a bigger scale.

Has anyone tried “soil cement” as mentioned in the article above? It seems like I remember someone here mentioning tilling in some cement to another aggregate for their dry lots, but I can’t find that thread. It would seem to me that if I mix in the right ratio and ensure it is well combined, that I can create a nice hard packed footing.

For reference, I’m in the western plains. So certainly not the PNW by any means. But lots of snow melt. The footing needs to be hard packed enough that I can scrape it, hopefully carefully, with a skid steer in the spring. Because it’s nearly impossible to keep runs cleaned in the winter when frozen poo is layered with snow and ice.

[clanter]

without adding Type 1 Portland cement and water to the mix thee is nothing to bind the soil into a mass

When I was in Asia soil cement was the only way we could stabilize the roads.

Here I have used this under mats in loafing sheds

[BroncoMo]

Ok so I’m not off base with this idea then.

I do realize last fall I essentially put down sand. But it had worked in the past to make hard packed surfaces. Perhaps I just got lucky when it did work.

[Scribbler]

Horse hooves can and will chew up anything that’s not actually cement or asphalt in wet weather.

Harder surfaces can still retain water and puddles and I’ve seen crusher dust paddocks turn into poop soup in winter. Even algae poop soup.

[clanter]

@Scribbler

Horse hooves can and will chew up anything that’s not actually cement or asphalt in wet weather.

if the soilcrete includes cement being wetted and compacted it becomes a very hardened surface, we ran tanks over it in Asia

[BroncoMo]

I mean surely it would have to be better than what I have going on. I didn’t used to have mud because the top soil was naturally hard packing coarse angular sand. Now after several years of occupation, the wind and snow erosion has taken the top soil away down to clay. I didn’t know clay was down there’s until it became exposed. Now I have mud. I thought the solution was the road base material, but clearly it’s not working like I had anticipated.

[BroncoMo]

I do have some stalls that need some work under the mats. Maybe I’ll use that as a test run before I go and fill up a dry lot full of it, just to find out I’m not any good at this haha.

[Mosey_2003]

@BroncoMo

I do realize last fall I essentially put down sand. But it had worked in the past to make hard packed surfaces. Perhaps I just got lucky when it did work.

What actual material was this sand vs what you put down before that worked? If you put down something like agricultural limestone (“aglime” here) that would pack down very nicely, as it’s angular and rather fine (in comparison to an actual sand). But if it’s coarse sand, especially if it was washed, it certainly isn’t going to compact like something fine (as you saw). If you got it from the same supplier it could just have varied in fineness or how well it was washed. If you can find a fine-lime product that would likely work.

It’s so weird how regional names for products are, road base here is actual rocks plus the fine material, usually a 1" rock give-or-take.

[BroncoMo]

Honestly it is native “sand” that is taken straight from a hillside. It’s used to maintain the roads where I live. So while it looks the same to me, it’s highly likely that its actual composition varies depending on where you take it out of the hillside.

It is very coarse “sand” that is angular. As I said, it’s used to maintain the dirt roads so generally packs very well. So it’s possible that A ) the composition of what I grabbed was different, or B ) human error with installing it, or C ) all the above.

[lenapesadie]

What a cool concept! Please report back if you try this