The Simple Method That'll Help Prevent Potholes In Your Gravel Driveway

If you're into a rustic look or want a driveway that won't break the bank, crushed gravel might be the right choice for you. But if you've ever driven on a gravel driveway or road, you probably found yourself dodging massive potholes. Luckily, potholes aren't a completely inevitable part of gravel driveways, and all you need is a "crown" to help keep yours blemish free. Generally, potholes form in gravel driveways after water gets stuck under the surface, so ensuring that your driveway has ways to divert water is important. One easy method is to create a "crown" — or high point — in the center down your driveway lengthwise to give any water another run-off point. 

Assuming that your driveway is pothole-free, you can start creating a crown by driving a machine like a tractor up and down your driveway a few times to break up the gravel. Once the gravel is loose again, you'll go up one side of your driveway with a grader to pull gravel to the center. As you do this, keep in mind that your crown needs to be about a ½ inch high for every foot that your driveway is wide. Then, go ahead and repeat this on the other side. Finally, just compact the gravel down on the whole driveway with a roller, tractor, or skid-steer. Voila, you have a crown! 

If you already have potholes in your driveway, all isn't lost. You're still able to create a crown, but you first need to start out by filling those holes. Unfortunately, that isn't as easy as tossing a bunch of gravel in and walking away. Instead, you actually need to make the problem worse first by creating a bigger hole.

You might be asking, "Why in the world would I do that?" But here's the thing: A pothole is more than just a hole in the ground. Your problem is also with the area of your driveway surrounding that hole. So to properly deal with it, you need to break up those surrounding rings, which means you should dig out about double the size of the actual pothole. After that's done, you can fill up the hole with compacted gravel before leveling it off. 

After all the potholes are filled, you can go ahead and create a crown to help prevent future issues. But this isn't a one-and-done type of deal. You will need to touch up your driveway's crown as part of your regular gravel driveway maintenance. And between fixing the crown, you should look into options like raking your gravel driveway regularly to help ensure that it continues to drain properly.