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Caliche washout

Posted By: Mr Squatch

Caliche washout - 10/02/20 02:42 PM

Good morning THF! Wondering if y'all can try to help me with a problem we have on our hillside caliche driveway.

We have a spot on our caliche driveway in the hill country that has washed out pretty good. Haven't had it graded in a while because we are pretty much down to bedrock. We have one spot that has 2 large limestone blocks that have been uncovered from the wash out that creates a kind of step. Probably around 2 ft x 4 ft or so long up the slope and several inches at the "step", not an issue for trucks but smaller cars might have trouble. We do not have a tractor at this time so work will likely be done by hand. We have had it filled in the past and it washes out with the first couple of rains. Is there anything I can do to try to fill this and get it more stable so it won't wash out so easily and stand up to some vehicle traffic?

I've thought about removing the limestone and back filling but I don't know how long that would hold up and worry about just creating a bigger hole. I've toyed with the idea of just mixing cement and caliche and letting it set up to try to hold it together a little longer but figure that would eventually just crumble. I will be there this weekend and can try to get pictures to give a better idea of what I'm dealing with but any ideas would be appreciated!
Posted By: Erathkid

Re: Caliche washout - 10/02/20 03:22 PM

We have the same exact issue. We doze it smooth and first good rain washes it away. My truck gets a beating coming up or going down. Probably have to hand dig with a rock bar and lay down bags of concrete enclosed in heavy fabric. That's all I've got. Good luck and take pics please.
Posted By: Stompy

Re: Caliche washout - 10/02/20 03:25 PM

I have the same issue here on the ranch in my creek crossings. My dozer/gravel guy suggested putting down oversized rock first, then base rock over the top. I have 8 areas I did this to several years ago and it's worked great. The oversized is about the size of your fist. Next thing would be to divert the water away from your road somehow.
Posted By: 603Country

Re: Caliche washout - 10/02/20 04:41 PM

I had three creek crossings that kept getting worse and worse as time and weather passed. After studying the problem for a long time and coming up with various bad ideas, I decided to use a simple approach that worked. I bought a lot of Sackcrete and built a short retaining wall with them at each crossing, on the downstream side. The retaining wall sounds fancy, but was really just 3 layers high of the bags laid flat. Then I put gravel in the crossing and enough of it so that it was level with or just slightly lower than the tops of the bags. The purpose of the bags is just to hold the gravel in place so that it won’t wash downstream. This has worked very well. I don’t know, however, if it’ll work for the OP’s situation.

When I first bought this place, the crossings were shallow. After years of driving ATV’s through the crossings in wet weather, I turned hard packed dirt and clay into mud. The loosened dirt and mud would get washed away partially by the next big rain. The crossings got deeper and deeper. I needed to stabilize the crossings. I knew rock and gravel would work, but didn’t know how to hold it in place. Somebody on the forum suggested sacks of concrete. Bingo.
Posted By: 68rustbucket

Re: Caliche washout - 10/02/20 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by Stompy
I have the same issue here on the ranch in my creek crossings. My dozer/gravel guy suggested putting down oversized rock first, then base rock over the top. I have 8 areas I did this to several years ago and it's worked great. The oversized is about the size of your fist. Next thing would be to divert the water away from your road somehow.


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Posted By: Mr Squatch

Re: Caliche washout - 10/03/20 06:32 PM

Thanks for the advice. Here are some pictures of the area. We have 2 issues with runoff, one is straight down the drive and the other comes from the right where the phone company trenched.
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