Pros and Cons of using woodchips in place of gravel

So when I get some land, I was thinking of using wood chips rather than gravel for a long flat driveway. Looking for feedback so Ill start.

Usually you get lots of greens in along with the chips as the local guys trim to keep powerlines safe.



Pro - can be had for free in many areas, just by knowing who to talk to
- could be a way to get it to break down faster to use as a mulch.
- improve soil compared to gravel
- easier to spread and fill pot holes

Con - wouldn't pack and hold together like gravel
- might be bumpy?
- 2wd vehicle get stuck in snow/ice more so than gravel
- snow plows would make a mess of it

i don't think it would be bumpy but the other two cons sounds like something to think about, i'd never thought about it much

heres a guy who use wood chips for damn near everything, i believe hes got it on his driveways and such as well
google:
backtoedenfilm.com

I think that drainage is a big issue for your idea, as well as a base for the road. I worked road construction as a young boy and the 2 things I learned was that if you had a good base, and if you had good drainage, you would have a good road. Oh and one more thing, water runs down hill, you would be amazed at how many people can't figure that out. You idea MIGHT work if the driveway had a solid soil type under it that drained well. And if it was not TOO steep so that the chips would wash off the road. And if the driveway did not get too many ruts in it, and if the wood chips didn't just sink down into the mud, and if,,,,well, maybe a stone base would work better than free wood chips. The wood chips might be better used on your garden and around your fruit trees. Smarter use of your free mulch I my opinion.

^he brings up a good point, and wood chips quickly improve the soil for growing conditions
such as moisture retention and softer soil
that would make me think its difficult to work with a wood chip driveway but at the same time i'm pretty sure ive seen wood chip roadways before that worked just fine so i guess if you did nessacary work before laying wood chips down it would work pretty well
just look into proper road construction technique's plenty before you start

I would avoid woodchips for a roadway unless you can reapply them annually. A decent (not even great) gravel road can last years without maintenance, but a woodchip road might need to be topped with new chips every year or so. This is from my own experience having both gravel and woodchip driveway areas. The woodchips are on a section of driveway we don't use more than once a week.

I think it depends a lot on how the road is going to be used. infrequent use and no heavy equipment: the wood chips ought to be fine. if it will be used a lot and their will likely be big trucks or other heavy thing: wood chips could still work, but you'll have to replace them often. your mention of the snow plow suggests the latter might be the case.

a friend of mine has a gravel that was built really well. all told, it goes down more than four feet below grade. big rocks at the very bottom getting smaller with each layer until the top is packed crushed rock. in the 25 years he's had the place, he has never had to bring in gravel or do any serious maintenance, despite moving all manner of heavy equipment on it. the driveway predates his arrival by at least 50 years. the driveway next door to his is more modern, and they spread a couple loads of gravel once or twice each year depending on the weather.

you can bet that my friend's driveway cost a whole hell of a lot more money to build initially, but that was pretty much the end of the cost. the newer one was probably pretty cheap, but continues to incur costs regularly and indefinitely.

my friend discovered the makeup of his driveway when he tried to run a waterline under it. thought it would be a simple matter of some time with a trenching shovel. when that didn't work, he moved on to a ditch witch. when that didn't work, he moved on to a track hoe. that didn't work either. he ended up having to dig a pit on either side deeper than the driveway, then he drilled a pipe through.

roads are one of those things that seem like they should be really simple to build, but reality turns out to be different.

we love the back to eden film Devon Olsen!

here's another thought, wood chips would create more edge for life right? I mean how much life do you have in hard packed gravel. sure it might get rutted if heavy trucks drove on it, but if its free and deep and often added to it, i can see it being a home for all kinds of good soil life, maybe even growing things along side it....

deviation from the norm here - what if you didn't even really have a driveway, just wood chip mulch all over the place you drove on, and took different paths as ruts wore into it?

I would be concerned with the wood chips breaking down and the wood soaking up water making a less than desireable surface. I like gravel. It is stone which is a fairly permanent material. I use graduated layers of stone. Big stuff down below, then 4", then 2.5", then 1.5" then sand. This has created a very strong road surface that also plows very well and holds up to rain storms. It drains well.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

I can't imagine a situation where chips would make more sense than gravel other than when trying to stiffen up soft ground where the chips are being placed so that they will rot. Even then there's a good chance of getting bogged down in the mud or the chips.

Sometimes chips are laid out at muddy jobsites. These work great for foot and wheelbarrow traffic but heavy vehicles can get stuck.

Never ever ever allow a demolition company to bring you chopped up debris which is sometimes referred to as "chips" ,"hog"or "hog fuel". This stuff can contain all manner of contaminants from nails to lead paint to asbestos. Don't do it.

Another downside is that they might attract termites. (Whether that is a problem in your area is another question.)

If they are, then keep the chips away from your house/buildings.

Found this while researching mulch driveways on Google, so I am bumping it for more responses.
I have a mere 200 square feet to cover, just enough to park a truck on.
I was planning on gravel, but gravel is more complicated and expensive than expected.
I can get mulch for free or delivered for $50.00 for 10 yards.
Could I dig out a 10 X 20 X 1 foot space, fill it with mulch, and expect a surface that could be parked on /driven on with out getting stuck?

I've done this before. It's nice while at lasts (smells good too), but depending on the precipitation and usage, they definitely don't last all that long. Wood biodegrades much faster than stone.

what does the drive turn to as the mulch is swallowed by the soil? a mud hole or just think soil?
does a fresh application help? or worsen?
and personally im curious if youd have bunch of mushrooms in the drive on rainy days?

personally im filling my drive with ston because it needs to be removed from around my trees but i am curious...

Having done this last year, I can say that it will last about a year if 2-3 inches thick and when gone, it will leave very nice hummus-like soil in its stead. Clover along the edges will start to creep inward and plants love it in general. Erosion can be an issue, as we had bits of the driveway wash away to reveal the gravel/stone/packed clay earth beneath, but considering the cost of the delivered mulch (free), I am not complaining one bit.

It's also lovely to look at during the damp/rainy times of the year.

William Bronson wrote: Found this while researching mulch driveways on Google, so I am bumping it for more responses.
I have a mere 200 square feet to cover, just enough to park a truck on.
I was planning on gravel, but gravel is more complicated and expensive than expected.
I can get mulch for free or delivered for $50.00 for 10 yards.
Could I dig out a 10 X 20 X 1 foot space, fill it with mulch, and expect a surface that could be parked on /driven on with out getting stuck?

Hey William, I am in the process of filling an eroded parking area with 1-2 feet of wood chips and have noticed that it can cause a loss of traction when wet, especially with my rear wheel drive truck. I am still not completely done so it's not compacted down all the way. But I will post pictures and some more results when I am finished in a few weeks. My thinking is the wood chips will start in the parking area and sit for a period of time before they are moved a short distance into the bottom of my Swales/garden paths, where they will sit again for a period before they are moved up to the garden beds. This will allow me to make use of the chips multiple times as they are decomposing before they finally end up as a soil ingredient in the garden.

Great info, exactly what I was looking for. I look forward to seeing your results!

Here are some photos of the mostly completed driveway.
















I tried to take them so the depth of the chips can be seen. After it rains and you pack them down with a car and they are much more stable. I'll see how they hold up as the year progresses.

Looks great, I will have to show my wife?

Zach, in the past 10 months, how has your driveway held up?

I'm thinking about doing this. My red clay driveway is 1/3 of a mile long and will cost a fortune to do anything. It winds through the woods and is goi g down hill most of the way. There is pretty good drainage along most of it.

It is currently red clay. It's great in the summer but since we've had rain in East Texas for almost three weeks straight, it's really slick and nasty.

I'm thinking I would apply it around 5 inches thick. It may take a while to get that much but it can't be worse than what I have now.

Think of an overused horse corral. Water plus decomposing organic matter plus compaction equals mud. My initial thought is that a wood chip drive would need yearly top ups, and even then would probably have issues as the soil increased in organic matter. But, having never tried it, I am curious to hear an update from those who have.

It's funny that you asked because I was just thinking about bringing this back up since the winter is coming to an end. Overall I am very happy with the performance of my driveway chips. They have decomposed somewhat and I will try to elaborate by how much.

This was not a perfect test because my neighbor behind me got a new sewer line and there was some disturbance. The line connected in the middle of the alleyway so the construction crew had a bobcat back and forth all over my chips. I told them it was ok with me as long as they left it like they found it. Well they did not, and they did a supremely crappy job at everything they did. I won't bore with details, or mention company names, (even though I kind of want to) but needless to say the place in the Alley they redid with asphalt has sunk about 6 inches since they did not pack the dirt into the hole at all. I had to go about filling a sink hole area with rocks and dirt.

Since my chips were rutted and messed up I decided to take about 6 inches off the top of one parking space and move it up onto the other two parking spaces and relevel. It was less work than it sounds and it pretty much got two spots back to where they were initially. Here are the pics, it is hard to get meaningful shots.







The last one just gave me an idea about growing a really tough ground cover in the chips. If it were a road then I imagine if you drove in the same spot each time then the rest would grow up and form together with a root mass. As I was moving the chips I was down about halfway through them when I started hitting long shoots of bermuda that were still living down there. So in 10 months I did one session of maintenance, and I could have made it longer were it not for some lying brutes with a bobcat. Probably not a worthwhile endeavor unless someone else is spending the money chipping all the wood, since it will need topping off a time goes on, it's been a cool lesson in soil formation. And I learned about slime molds.

Eric Platt wrote:Zach, in the past 10 months, how has your driveway held up?

I'm thinking about doing this. My red clay driveway is 1/3 of a mile long and will cost a fortune to do anything. It winds through the woods and is goi g down hill most of the way. There is pretty good drainage along most of it.

It is currently red clay. It's great in the summer but since we've had rain in East Texas for almost three weeks straight, it's really slick and nasty.

I'm thinking I would apply it around 5 inches thick. It may take a while to get that much but it can't be worse than what I have now.

Just my guess, unless that clay is hard as a rock only 5 inches will be squished into the ground after a little bit of time. Unless you only use your driveway with very light vehicles. With more like 12-20 inches they will sink in on the bottom layer and stay nice and woody on top.

FWIW, I got a oad of wood chips delivered in the fall to put under some trees and use in the pathways of my garden.

The "driveway" has some pretty deep ruts in it because the gravel is mostly gone, so I filled them in with wood chips.

They did soak up the fall rains and then froze solid so I imagine a snow plow wouldn't have made a dent on it.

This spring I got my car stuck in the driveway with all the mud from the thaw, and it was a patch of wood chips that I managed to roll onto that saved my ass.

I guess they'll break down over the next 18 months but in the meantime I think they'll do a pretty good job.

I drove onto a woodchip road a month or so ago, on a property owned by a fellow who runs a chipping service. Made a pretty good surface even in late winter on the Wet Coast, but it was DEEP woodchips, I would guess a couple feet, and obviously is topped off frequently. My Elf 150 with dual rear wheels and lousy tires had no traction issues in 4wd, but I think it would have been a bit iffy in 2wd while unloaded.

I wonder if woodchips would be a good option in places where wet, muddy soil would rapidly swallow gravel anyways... Can't exactly use them where you have standing/flowing water, though. I think for areas you drive on infrequently it would be a great improvement on grass, especially if free... and if ignored, it just turns to soil rather than leaving gravel where you might now wish to mow or plant.

Woodchips (often available for free in towns and cities) are an awesome mulch and a great placeholder when you take over an abused property. They'd be perfect for a parking space and good for a driveway, as long as it's not too steep (they're going to move a lot more in running water than gravel of the same size). Coarser trimmings might do a better job of holding together under duress, and thicker layers will help.

The best thing about the wood chips is that they are multifunctional. I don't know of anybody's soil that wouldn't be happy with a bit more organic matter. If you've laid out a whole driveway, after a couple of years you could scrape that down and use it in your orchard. Trees love woodchips, they encourage fungi which makes for a good "forest" microbiome in the soil. Then just get new chips for the driveway. If the soil underneath is laid out intelligently (meaning: not too steep and higher in the middle so the water drains off to the sides) you should be able to repeat that process indefinitely, just adding more and more carbon to the soil.

- - - Every so often a state trooper pulls off of the road to set up a speed trap after chart vehicle has been driven a long distance or at high speeds !

The often repeated results is the Troop Cars Catalytic Converter sets fire to the dead grass under the vehicle. This is a pretty common story and whether

true or not is repeated as gospel in the Law enforcement community !


With this as a consideration I would worry about what might happen just outside your front door if a car that had been driven for many miles parks

on top of dry wood chips especially with an older vehicle that maybe leaking oil, or Transmission or Power Steering fluids ! just my 2 cents !

For the good of the craft ! Big AL

It has its place as a temporary road, or at the very least adding lots of extra every year. I've used it for making cheap access roads in muddy ground. You have to go at least a foot thick, more is better. It will break down and fail eventually and if you want to gravel in the future it has to all be removed from the road area before gravel is brought in.

I have a tree service that's going to give me more wood chips than i need and i am going to use them in low lying areas that flood as well as paths and drive areas on my small farm.  I'm wondering if they will work in my main drove way areas instead of gravel. I'm using gravel but it's expensive and eventually it is driven into the ground and you have to replenish.

Can you apply wood chips and gravel on top?  Any experience here?

Joseph Simmons wrote:I have a tree service that's going to give me more wood chips than i need and i am going to use them in low lying areas that flood as well as paths and drive areas on my small farm.  I'm wondering if they will work in my main drove way areas instead of gravel. I'm using gravel but it's expensive and eventually it is driven into the ground and you have to replenish.

Can you apply wood chips and gravel on top?  Any experience here?

To me, putting gravel on top would defeat the purpose. To me, the whole point of using really thick wood chips *is* that they will eventually decompose and turn into good soil.

What no one's mentioned yet, is if you've got gravel parking areas and trees/shrubs/plants around them, you end up with organic matter mixing with the gravel no matter what, and then the plants that move in are tough, tenacious ones that might not be the plants you choose to grow. I got really tired of weeding what we call, "the gravel pad" and after 10 years, what chooses to grow there is much more pleasant with the exception of a creeping blackberry which tends to be a tripping hazard. Now a few times a year I mow the area that I walk on the most.

Someone raised the concern of cars/trucks having hot things that could cause a fire. These are not "the whole car" - but rather I believe the only really worrisome thing is the catalytic converter. I would think a piece of scrap sheet metal handy with a handle on it and tucked under the risk spot so that it spreads the heat, might be all you need.