Putting Down Gravel Driveway Using Geocell. Our Solution for Long Steep Slope. 

As a teenager I lived on a dirt road in the California desert. A regular job was going to the dump and finding a mattress and stripping off all the fabric down to wire spring frame. We would take it home, attach a chain to drag it and weigh it down with whatever was handy, then we would drag it up and down the road to fill the ruts and smooth it out. it was amazing how well it worked.

I admire Bryan’s work attitude.

god bless Brian, he is some hard worker. i wish they had that GEO CELL when i had my country house. over 23 years, i can't remember how many times i had gravel put down on it

CML is one of the most under rated Homestead channels on YT!!!

Army used this for working in the sand to help build roads for the heavy trucks !!!

Neat product. Keeps the gravel in place. Gravel helps minimize the mud.

I needed this! We just bought a house on a hill and the driveway needs A TON of work! So now I'm watching to see what we will have to do

Everything is looking really nice!! Love the work you are doing on your property 😁❤️😁 Thank you for sharing

Outstanding idea guys! That is what I needed for my very hilly mud-ravaged driveway.

This is the best video I have seen on helping with a steep drive way. I live in north Florida and my land is all down hill from the paved road. I have worked and spent many hours on my drive way and everytime it rains it all washes down hill. Thanks for sharing this.

That’s some interesting stuff you’re putting on the driveway. Looking good!

Amy & Bryan your under layment for your driveway seems to be very sturdy and I hope will stand up to your tough Colorado winter's. This winter should be a good test! Glad things are progressing for you on and around your homefront.

Great video...I have a steep incline on my driveway and just found the solution. Thanks for sharing!

Oh drive way looks so good and nice to see you got rain. Mountains look beautiful. You guys wearing long sleeves.

Nice job on the driveway, and very beautiful piece of land!

I'm working on a project with a similar product. We are building a parking lot with grass growing through the geotech so the parking lot looks like a lawn. It's great stuff. It really supports vehicle traffic and will help you with erosion!

Glad to see that geo grid up close and the install. Thanks.

Everyone has an opinion it seems... ignore them. Nice work. You did your homework and you came to the correct answer.

Is there anything Brian can't do? Amazing guy! That is a remarkable pair of materials that you used. I don't think I've ever seen any paving solution with the combination of economy and ruggedness that you two have. If they've used what I think is mixed in with the gravel, it ought to really pack down and give you a good surface for a long time. A lot of people are going to copy this! Well done.

Looks like a good product. I am guessing that it will continue to pack over the next couple of years and you will need to put a top coat or two on. We always used granite dust on top. It is pretty fine and compresses solid pretty close to concrete, without using a roller. The guy that mention doing it with grass made me think about low(wet) spots you have to drive through in pastures.

Nice job!!! Beautiful property thanks for sharing

Hey, there is another positive note, THE PUPPY! Great job on the drive, I live in N.C. hilly property, but the same ole gravel, rains hard, more gravel, etc, etc.

huge improvement , good material that should last

It turned out really good.. Great job you guys..

Nice job guys, keep up the good work!

Put this down on slopes back in early 90's as a test area for NC state DOT on I 40 in Kernersville and it really work great gave grass seed a good bed too start

I just discovered your channel! I grew up near Bailey Colorado in the Burland Ranchettes area near the top of Crow Hill along 285. My family build our own home on 25 acres back in the late 60s into the 70s. My step mom still lives in the area.

That turned out pretty nice.

I'm very happy I watched your video. Good job.

The projects continue! The driveway is greatly improved! Brian's energy never ends! Thanks for sharing!!

I think the gravel mix is called crusher run. It is basically the tailings from the other gravel that they produce. It does contain a lot of dust that compacts when wet and hardens. I like the stuff far better than regular gravel. The Geocell product looks like it is going to be a real winner on the hill. A honeycomb driveway base.

That GEOCEL looks promising. Looking forward to next springs videos. BTW, I'm a big fan of Andrew Camarata. Check out his channel on putting down gravel. He does it for a living and is an "artist" barring none. Wishing you WELL and Thanks for the video.

Omg this is fantastic. Solved a big issue on a lot I’m purchasing !!!

Those trucks are designed to open the rear gate just a little and spread the gravel as they drive. works really well.Bottom dumps work even better.

I would definitely recommend geocells as a solution for stabilizing steep driveways or slopes. Here are some tips and advice to keep in mind: Firstly, it's important to carefully evaluate the slope you're working with and determine if a geocell is the right solution for your specific situation. Factors like soil type, slope angle, and expected traffic volume can all play a role in the effectiveness of a geocell, so consulting with a professional wouldn’t be a bad idea. Assuming a geocell is a good fit for your project, some potential pitfalls to avoid include underestimating the amount of material needed, failing to properly prepare the site (such as removing vegetation or debris), or not following the manufacturer's installation instructions closely enough. These can all impact the effectiveness and longevity of your geocell installation. One important factor to keep in mind is proper drainage. Geocell panels can help distribute weight and prevent erosion, but if water is allowed to accumulate or flow through the panels in a way that wasn't intended, it can undermine the stability of the installation. So be sure to plan for proper drainage and consider installing a sub-surface drainage system if needed. Finally, I would recommend using a high-quality geocell product from a reputable manufacturer like Geoweb, Basecore, or Presto Geosystems, and possibly seeking out professional installation help if you're not comfortable doing it yourself. A good geocell can last for many years so it's important to get it right from the start.

For those in "limestone" country, go with 3/4 or 1 inch minus. The minus term means that it has extra dust instead of the clean which is washed. this will allow the dust to fill the voids between stones and with wetness and pressure it packs almost to concrete toughness. Long wet periods like winter is will get soggy but stick together and hold unless the ground underneath get muddy. In those areas packing in larger stone first is needed. I did a driveway with a hook curve near the road and then straight in a flood plain near a river and never had a problem until one year I had a front tire dig in at the hook curve and tore through the two to three inch layer of limestone floating on a mud/silt base that got soupy. In the spring I dug out that spot about a foot and put two inch minus in the hole and topped with 3/4 minus and never had a problem again. It is all just limestone with no cement but done right it glues itself together pretty good, like this stone in the video. In the dog days of summer it gets dusty but near the cabin I topped that with some 3/8 inch clean limestone chips in a thin layer each year for a nice dressed out smooth surface that I could walk barefoot on and that kept the dust down near the doorway. Just a thought. Also Geo Cell is great on steep sections and the only real problem is you cannot scrape/remove gravel where it is and have to be adding gravel in those areas to stay above the top of the plastic grid. As long as you do not hook it with a blade or such it works great at avoiding erosion. Just do not get stingy with gravel in those areas and you are fine. It is amazing at breaking up and stopping erosion flows of water and holding the gravel in place.

Really that gravel holder thing is preety damm good you hve a very neat and clean drive way after aa heavy rain 🌧 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Looks great guys!

I like the idea of the mesh on the hill. My old driveway was the same gravel and when it would rain a lot it would stick together on the top but once it broke through it would start trenching and just make a bigger trench and wants to water got down in the trenches just eroded everything out the end and a bunch of our driveway would end up in the ditch out in front by the street come of that mesh would keep that from happening, it was a push the water back up to the top so you want to have water pressure digging under your gravel.

Geo Cell looks like a smart product! Hope it works well for you!

I’m very interested to see how that goecell holds upto a winter of plowing.. Looks great btw!

That’s a beautiful German Shepherd! Vigo!

I have looked at this type of product before, let's see how it looks come spring time. When maintaining roads with a tractor having the right tools always helps. I would invest in a box scraper, long before I get a blow blower, I deal with Sierra cement, very wet up to 3' ft deep in spots. I maintain & remove snow over several miles of gravel roads and the box scraper works best for both tasks, my front mounted snow plow works best on the paved roads. Next up drainage. Without proper drainage no road will survive. This is where the box scraper will really help out, keeping the drainage open and channeled where you want it to go. A tractor is the best multi-tool investment when owning rural property & you can never have enough attachments to help you get the work done faster & easier.

This looks interesting. We used road fines. Black top that is ground off when they resurface roads. lay it out to uniform thickness then have it compacted with large vibrating steam roller. Nearly as good as blacktop. I haven't had to touch mine in ten years.

We use geo cell often in mountains of WV and it’s good product on steep slopes. get some more experience on that little tractor and you’ll find you won’t need many implements for it. That bucket will do more than you think with time behind the wheel. And you can compression compact with tractor it’s heavier than your vehicles guys. add full bucket of material and even more ground pressure psi, tram up and down for hour or so and rest time will do if don’t want spend the $ rent a vibratory roller. Keep up the good work!

Smart Gravel System 👍

Looks beautiful up there

So many clips of Bryan working in fast action mode ... Sure hope he gets a chance to slow down for Labor Day! LOL

Enjoy watching your video

I think you may need to fill your "ditch" with what we call rip rap, basically 3 to 4 inch angular stone, not smooth like field stone. If you dont I think your ditch will grow deeper and wider with every gully washer. Something to keep an eye on.

Good job folks

You can tell you got more proficient with how the tractor spread that individual substrate as you went on.

I don't know how i got here but I have enjoyed it

Great job 👍

Awesome video

we tried a grid system, the chains on the snowplow tore it up so we used the dozer and backed the road with limestone and fines, packed like asphalt and the chains didn't affect it.l

I've considered Geoweb matting for a hill on my farm road that washes out frequently. Where you are and the level of snow runoff you deal with, consider shaping the road center into a crown to direct water out of the road and a ditch on at least one of the shoulders, to allow water to run somewhere in a controlled fashion or it will still cause major destruction. Worse case scenario would be if your shoulders wash out. That would be hard to correct with the Geoweb in place. I use a box-scraper to fix major problems and a 12' York Modern rake for touch ups and/or to smooth out the roughness a box-scraper leaves behind. I think you probably could get away with a land planer/road leveler, Everything Attachments did a video on theirs. They make nice attachments, I have their 108" high horsepower grader-clearing box blade and its a beast! Please upload a review video of your Geoweb thoughts maybe in spring...I would love to know what you think.

A landscape rake in reverse or spun around going forward might help smooth the gravel over the geo cell in the future. Have a productive day.

I would have installed steel thin square first wire mesh thru out, then Geocell expand cell more, then compacting to increase to cell size. For one man job, well done!

Great job

driveway looks great! the only bad thing is we wont have those adventurous winter trips up to the house on snow or mud. :)

This is exactly what I've been saying someone needed to invent for years. If you look at any retail parking lot, probably 80% of it is only used in the Christmas season. The rest of the year it is a heat sink that makes the AC run like crazy, and needs to be maintained, painted and plowed. If you made the parking spaces nearest the door paved and the rest gravel with this stuff, so cars couldn't get stuck in it, you could seed grass on it and have a lovely, cooling meadow nine months of the year, and simply "paint" parking spaces on the grass at Christmas time.

I know it would take a LOT more fill but some municipalities are using old tires bolted together in a grid. It makes a super-tough grid at a very low cost.

Nice very informative thanx

Box blade would work just fine. Just set your outside blade to touch before your inside (cutting edge blade). Makes for a beautiful job. Best to you.

What my Father used to use on his driveway, was 2-6 inch angle irons about 7 feet long, he welded these onto a piece of 1/4 inch sheet metal at about a 5 degree off equal. Then he attached a chain to it in 2 places, so he could angle this any way he wanted. Then he placed about 500 lb boulder at first, but in the later years used poured concrete about 4 foot by 6 foot by 4 foot high |------| looked like that from the side, only cross bar was above the angle irons

Looks good

I have a similar driveway situation in the same area and need to do this to my steep washout prone driveway! Definitely curious how it held up to plowing...

Colorado native here, lived in mountains 16 of those. Plowed snow for a living many of those winters, I’m guessing after a year of blowing snow (especially with a rear mounted blower) your gonna wish you had got on Craiglist and found a used plow truck.

Use an old bed springs with blocks on it.

Well done, looking great! What kind of weather do you have during winter? How would this kind of driveway behave during rainy, snowy, icy winter that goes in a circle with +3°C during the day with rain and -3°C during the night, probably it could be difficult, close to impossible to manage a snow cleaning on that kind of surface? Thank you!

I've never heard of that GeoCell stuff. How's it working out for you? We're in the process of building a new log home and depending on our finances at the end of the build.. we may have to put off paving the driveway for a year or two. If so.. I'd be looking at a gravel driveway for a few years. Is this stuff worth it?

hello, great video! how has the product held up over the past few months?

You can get an emulsion applied to the gravel that will seal it. It is applied similarly to prime oil that is sprayed on the sub grade (native soil)prior to pavement.

Three concrete blocks and a 5x7 piece of chain link fence works great for this type of material

Nice video and demo of using the geogrid but I think they recommend using a non-woven geofabric underneath the grids, also j hook rebars instead of nails for anchoring when there's a slope... Maybe those are new recommendations? It would be great to see an updated video or picture of how it's the driveway today...

Hello! Thank you for the video. Did yall use 2 inch? Is it still holding up?

Practice makes perfect. You can spread gravel driving forward.

Best way to spread that is with a good piece of chain link fence dragging behind the tractor. Put some weights on the top.

Hope you give an update after your winter and spring.

You can save a ton of time by having the trucks spread the gravel or whatever material you are using for the driveway in non-Geocell areas. They limit the rear door opening using chains and use their speed to determine the amount being dumped over say a 100 ft or more length of road. You can get 3 to 4 inches evenly laid in a matter of a minute using this trick. It's a huge time saver!

Looks like what you call gravel. Here its called RCA . Recycked concrete aggregate. Reason it hardens so well is the concrete powder or dust. Shpuld maybe have used a 5 ton vibrating roller to really pack it down. Also if you need a recommendation on a snow thrower. Buy a cub cadet 3 stage in whatever width you desire. I use it here and really moves a lot of snow

Any idea how steep a slope this product can handle, looks like a really innovative idea and could be a great fix for a problem I have getting a path built to my dock.

I am taking your advice on my steep driveway and should be getting a delivery of the honeycomb material in a couple of days. Initially I didn't catch that you put down a grid material. Did not see it on the geocell website. So, what do you think about putting rock at the bottom of each cell and then road rock on top? Trying to avoid gravel sneaking out and down the hill. (not little rocks but maybe 2 to 3 in rock)?

Good job in the nick of time

Hi 👋👋 Do you guys have any advise on ground stakes to hold down the cells? IE - type and how many to buy? and place them every cell or every other cell on the parameter? Also did you leave your stakes in after the cells were filled or did you pull them? Many thanks 🙏🏼

That geocell grid works great for mud control in horse paddocks too, except I use the 4” thick product

Invest in a box blade to use on your driveway. Makes it very easy to level your gravel and crown your road. Fix your steep areas with crushed asphalt and then oil it. Will hold up well for 3-4 years even if plowing your snow.

Hey Amy, you can drive over that thing without damaging it? Will big trucks be able to drive on it?.... how are the fires out there? Did the rain help?... be safe

How will snow plowing affect the Geo grid????? Ty for sharing 😁

I would use a larger landscape rock on the outside of the road with even larger rock to hold the whole shabang in place and allow for drainage

I use CMB recycled concrete and asphalt as abase which that looks like that . then 2 1/4” minus grave which larger gravel on top last longer doesn’t plow like 3/4” gravel and doesn’t stick in tires .

I'm in the Seattle area but still wonder where you purchased your GeoCell since it looks like it may have been delivered to you and not purchased at a store. (Really good video ... thanks!)

I am interested in using a geogrid as well. Could you please tell us what the grade of the steep part of your driveway is?

He did a great job, I will be curious how the runoff will effect the edges. I hope it works truly. My concern is that if the edges erode dramatically the sides will become damaged without being able to effect the cells. I maybe would have dug some deep trenches on the edges before putting this in, but the theme of my comment is that it looks great and I hope it is easy to work with later assuming any major work needs to be done. Great and informative video!

great vid, Mahalo

Do you remove the spikes from the grid after it's full of gravel? If not, how do you avoid hitting them with tires?

Hi, looking into geocell but can you tell me what siding you used on the house?

I’m weird but I like videos about gravel. ☺️

Never heard of GEO CELL. I'd appreciate if you could do a couple follow ups on how it holds up overall and with plowing snow. Our driveway is a little steeper than yours & about 300' long. Impossible to keep gravel on it. We're hoping to address it in the spring. Looked into a company that grinds and processes the milling when they grind a road before paving it. The company dumps, spreads, then rolls it like asphalt. Surprisingly expensive !! I feel it would be more expensive than asphalt. We'd prefer staying with gravel. Your driveway looks great.