Road Base Material — The Spreading and Compaction Process
Whether contractors are constructing a highway, residential driveway, private road, or parking lot, their goal is to craft a drivable surface that is capable of supporting the expected loads. It is also important to minimize the need for frequent repairs, especially if those repairs tend to be expensive. Experienced paving contractors understand the connection between a high-quality driving surface and the foundation on which it rests. Therefore, contractors will typically use road base material to achieve the best results.
What Is Road Base Material?
As its name suggests, road base is the foundation layer that lies between the soil and the driving surface. There are many materials that can be used during a road base installation, but they are all a type of aggregate. Normally, the type of road base material used will depend on its local availability and cost. Typically, road base in Austin consists of decomposed granite, gravel, limestone, river rock, or recycled concrete that has been crushed to create properly sized particles. The largest particles of road base rock are slightly less than half an inch, while the smallest particles, known as fines, are a powdery dust.
What Is the Process for Installing Road Base Material?
The first step in a road base installation is to prepare the subgrade, which is the soil on which the road base rock will rest.
1. An Austin road base installer will need to carefully consider drainage issues, then establish what the slope needs to be. Most of the time, this will involve a virtually invisible center crown so that water flows evenly to both sides.
2. The subgrade will be compacted so that it will provide a stable platform for the road base rock. If the soil cannot be adequately compacted, it may be necessary for an Austin road base contractor to excavate a little of the native soil and replace it with something more suitable.
3. Once the subgrade has been prepared, the next step is the road base spreading operation. Depending on the expected traffic, road base in Austin is normally between four and six inches in depth. Therefore, most contractors will use a backhoe or skid steer to make road base spreading faster and less labor intensive.
4. After spreading and leveling the road base material, it will be thoroughly compacted with a compactor or roller.
5. Following compaction, road base in Austin should be watered down and allowed to dry for a minimum of 48 hours. This greatly enhances the water-shedding ability of Austin road base.
6. On some projects, contractors recommend topping the road base with a weed guard. This can help prevent traffic from pumping the fines in the material to the surface under wet conditions.
7. The final step in a road base installation is normally to top it with a layer of crushed rock. The depth of this finishing layer is usually at least two inches, but it may be four inches or more.
If you would like to learn more about road base in Austin, reach out to the experts at Juniors Materials. For more than 10 years, we have been providing our customers with road base installation, dump truck hauling, decomposed granite delivery, landscape material delivery, trash pickup, and dump truck hauling needs. We are also water and soil sinking, grading, and skid-steer loader contractors. We have an exceptional reputation for dependability, responsiveness, professionalism, and workmanship. You can contact us for a free quote by either calling 512-924-6887 or submitting the online form.
