Sometimes its hard to know what a good job really is. The Gravel Mechanics pride ourselves on our
transparency. We want you to know what makes a great gravel road. We use published reference
standards to guide us in our work to evaluate, fix and maintain gravel roads and driveways. These
standards are from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA), the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WDOT) and the University of
Wisconsin-Madison Transportation Information Center. While not all of these guidelines are easily
applied to a residential driveway but many of the problems we see are caused by deficiencies found in these reference standards along with the right way to fix them.

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If maintenance is done on a gravel road, we have found that most often takes the form of a dump truck delivering gravel and tailgate spreading it. This is when the driver uses chains on their tailgate to limit its opening to 3-5 inches and then raises the dump bed as they drive down the road. If done right you get a nice even layer of new gravel on your road. While it is an important step in fix a road that needs aggregate, it is only a step. Pouring good gravel on a bad road does not fix any problems and usually leaves you frustrated in 2-6 weeks as the bad road comes back leaving you little to show for your money. Fix it right and then maintain it.