At Avery Excavating, we offer a wide range of road gravel for you to pick up at our retail yard, or we are happy to deliver directly to your home or job site. Visit our road gravel delivery services page or learn more about your options below.
Which road gravel do we suggest as the best?
It’s called Afton Road Gravel. If you want to know why, continue reading, or just give us a call or stop by, and we’ll get you what you need asap!
Michigan has its own unique nomenclature (names) for aggregates. I think some are similar to our neighboring states west of Lake Michigan, but from my travels and conversations over the past 20 years, it seems our great Mitten State of Michigan is pretty unique in its naming of road gravel, sand, crushed stone, and aggregates in general.
What are the primary types of gravel that we offer?
So what types are there? For this article, we’ll focus on road gravel types. Road gravels we consider to be an aggregate with stone rock AND FINES that allow it to compact and serve as a road base for either a gravel driveway, gravel path, shed pad, gravel base for under pavement, or a construction driveway.
There are two basic categories:
- Sand and clay-based gravel: 22a and 23a
- 100% crushed limestone with fines-based gravel: Afton, 9a special, 25a special, and a few others
Sand & clay-based gravel
The 22a and 23A road gravel is gravel that is taken right out of the bank (also called bank-run) and processed through a crusher that sizes the material appropriately. This material contains a mixture of sand, clay, small stones, round stones, and crushed stone.
The specs are tested to maintain uniform consistency. Their weakness is that they have sand and round stone – they simply do not hold the compaction as well as the 100% crushed products. 22a and 23a road gravel is more susceptible to washouts from heavy rain and heavy vehicles.
100% crushed limestone
The 100% crushed gravel products are exactly what they say: the materials are quarried out of limestone gravel pits and processed through a gravel crusher that makes the product.
The benefit of 100% crushed limestone road gravel is that, once compacted and hardened, it holds up extremely well compared to the 22a and 23a products. They resist washouts from rain much better and hold up to heavy traffic much better than the 22a and 23a road gravel.
The 22a and 23a are generally always about $10 to $15 less than the Afton Road Gravel, 9a special, and 25a special.
Bottom line
22a and 23a road gravels work great for a base under asphalt or a temporary gravel driveway that will experience light construction or standard vehicle traffic only.
Afton Road Gravel, 25a special, and 9a special are excellent choices for driveways with steep slopes, heavy construction traffic, and in areas with heavy surface water/rain that are susceptible to washing out.
Give us a call to schedule your delivery or pickup today.
Material formula to calculate your needs (in cubic yards)
- (In feet) Length x Width x Thickness = Y
- Then divide Y by 27 = CY (this will give you Cubic Yards)
Common thickness numbers:
- 6 inches of compacted material: use 0.6
- 4 inches of compacted material: use 0.4
Example:
- 300 feet long x 14 feet wide x 0.6 (for 6 inches) = 2,520 cubic feet.
- 2520 ÷ 27 = 93.33 cubic yards
Depending on your needs, round down to 90 yards or round up to 100 yards for the best pricing for road gravel delivery.
This blog post was written by Kyle Riegle, owner of Avery Excavating