DIY way to wash sand/clay out of driveway gravel

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I hate how the sand and fine dust blows around on our dairy farm's gravel driveway in the dry summer months.

It's not reasonable to talk about blacktop due to the long driveway and the fact that it would get pummeled and potholed year-round by a huge heavy milk truck constantly rolling in and out.

 

Is there any reasonably low cost DIY way to remove the sand and clay dust from a gravel driveway myself, that does not involve:

  • hire contractor to remove 6-18 inches of gravel top layer
  • they haul it away to an old quarry for burial
  • they bring in washed gravel to replace it

 

I've been looking for some way to do this myself, to buy or rent a very small sized "gravel wash plant", but I don't think there's anything affordable. I might have to build a one-off machine myself to do it.

(Most web searches for this topic are SEO'd heavily by idiot mining and gold prospector companies. Trying to find answers via a direct web search for a "DIY wash plant" is useless, as it all is steered in the direction of huge expensive mining and highway resurfacing equipment.)

In order to not create a ridiculously huge mess, I'd apparently need:

  • baby track excavator to pull up the gravel
  • baby trommel (rotating screened barrel sieve) with high pressure water spray wash heads
  • settling tank or centrifugal separator to separate the agitated/suspended sand and clay from the wash water
  • sealed dump truck bed for the liquified clay and wet sand.

The separated sand and clay gets dumped out in a pile in a back field or woods area somewhere, and goes back to nature.

Once all the clay is removed (consisting of possibly 50% or more of the volume of gravel removed for cleaning), I'd apparently still need to bring dump trucks full of fresh washed gravel to replace the large volume of clay removed.

 

Signs seem to point in the direction of just hiring a contractor as mentioned at the top, as full-DIY is probably going to be too ridiculously complex and expensive, requiring buying or building one-off gravel wash, and clay/sand settling equipment, that then is never used again.

Also, I am aware this is not a permanent solution, as the gravel will slowly fill with sand and clay dust as the years go by. But it may be a decade or more before it gets very dusty again.

Best Answer

The clay/sand/finds help bind the gravel and create a macadamized and tough surface. Removing the fines will loosen the gravel, and unless you have a vibrating tamper/grader, your road will be in far worse condition when you are done.

Traditionally, people simply watered the roads to keep the dust down, but you can also put some lime on it.