Self Storage- Driveways

Have been plowing snow for the last 2 1/2 days. Was at one of the locations and I cut to deep and got into the driveway base. It was Pea Gravel. This doesn't happen at our other locations where it is either Concrete or crushed rock. So I got to thinking about driveways. It's pretty boring pushing snow for 2 1/2 days, near record 2 day totals.

Drive ways-

Dimensions:

a. Widths-
- We use 25 foot widths. Most vehicles and trailers are built to be no more than 6-8 feet wide. Two vehicles passing is 16 feet using the 8 foot width. If you consider the two sides next to each vehicle and the space between the vehicles, or three spaces then there is about 3 foot for each space (25 width less 16 foot width of two vehicles= 9 feet/3 spaces). This is fairly comfortable for all of our tenants. Our speed limit is 5 MPH, and they can comfortably pass each other.

- 20 foot widths. Same math, except now there is 1.3 feet for each space (20 width less 16 foot width of two vehicles- 4 feet/3 spaces). Most vehicles would still be comfortable passing, since your smaller vehicles are more towards the narrow width of 6-8 feet wide. I might actually prefer this width, since on our 25 foot width, some people try to back up and turn around in the middle of the driveway; or try to back a U-Haul or trailer into the unit with the wider driveway.

b. Turn arounds- We use 50 feet. This is mainly due to ease of access for our customers. This is a little excessive and could be narrowed down to 35 feet, they just have to come around the corner a little slower and you need heavier Bollards on the building corners. Zoning set backs may come into play. We have one area that requires a 50 foot setback at the entrance, so we are not giving up anything using 50 foot turn arounds there.

c. Depth or thickness-
- In the country side, there is no set depth for our drive ways. If we are using just Rock, we would use 3 inches of 3 inch rock or Crushed concrete "Clean" with no filler for the BASE. Either drive something heavy over it to push it into the ground or wait for a good rain and drive a vehicle over it. You want it to sink into the ground and form the BASE. Otherwise if you put your smaller 1 inch to 1.5 inch and filler (dust and smaller parts), directly on top o the 3 inch rock without compacting the 3 inch first, it will mix together. You want a smooth road surface, so you don't want the 3 inch rock on top. Then put about 3 inches of the 1 or 1.5 inch with the fines on top. Never use just "Clean" rock for your surface. It's like driving on marbles, they just move around and are loose under your tires.

- If you use "Engineering Fabric" on the dirt, then you don't need to put BASE rock down. Just put your 1/1.5 with fines. This material comes in rolls, with widths of 12 or 15 foot wide. It is a solid black mesh with no holes, although it will let water seep through slowly. We have started using this on all our rock roads. Takes less rock and you never have a pothole. This material is super strong and by putting the rock on top, you stretch the material. The impact of a dump trucks wheel pressing down, is distributed in a circle by the fabric, versus just below it. Also the water not soaking quickly into the ground prevents puddle forming and making a pothole. You just lay out and put a few pins in it. Then have the dump truck drive over and spread the rock.

- In the City where we are building, they give an option of 7 inches of Asphalt or Concrete; or 4 inches of Asphalt or Concrete over 6 inches of rock base. We chose to go with the 7 inches, since it is hard to get a consistent height and compaction on the 6 inches of rock base. Plus it takes more steps.

Drive way Material:

Your common drive way materials are Concrete, Concrete with Rebar, Asphalt, Reclaimed Asphalt (with tar and oil still, not extracted), Rock, Recycled Crushed Concrete, Pea Gravel, River Rock, Water Absorbing Concrete ( Did I say Water Absorbing Concrete?; not good for Freezing areas), Road Mats.

d. Zoning- always check first.

e. Cost- Generally from high to low in this order; Concrete with rebar, Concrete, Asphalt, Reclaimed Asphalt, Rock, River Rock, Pea Gravel, Recycled Crushed Concrete. The new technologies, I haven't seen prices. Part of the cost on concrete is the forming, laying rebar, pouring, levelling, wait time to "set", wait time before driving on (7 days and up). Won't get specific prices, since some of these depend on availability, distance and delivery cost. Example: If your near a river system, River Rock may be super cheap. If your in the middle of a mountain range or farm ground areas, there may be little River Rock and it might only be used for landscaping at a high price.

f. Pro's/Con's-
- Concrete, expensive and time consuming. Repairs are expensive, hard to do just a patch. Low maintenance.
- Asphalt, quick to lay down. High maintenance cost. Easy to do patch jobs.
- Rock- the saying here is the "Ground" ate it. Have to replace it, every few years. When you drive down a rock road and see the dust flying, that's the rock slowly being crushed into dust. Easy to spread and compacts into a nice solid surface.
- Recycled crushed rock- cheap since it is not mined and is usually close to you. It breaks down a lot faster than mined rock.
- River Rock and Pea Gravel, try to stay away from it, unless its just cheap and you have a relatively flat drive way. But hey you have Self Storage, it better be fairly flat. The worst surface to Plow snow on, since it does not readily compact.
- Water Absorbing Concrete or pads- you might not need Storm drains and/or Storm retention ponds. Less Pond, more rentable ground.


Product Warning:
No material or technical input was received from MIT, GIT, CIT, or my guys LSU. Yep, just me riding a tractor or skid steer working with different material and paying the bills. If you have a different experience, thought or input, please add for our benefit. Thanks.

Help your Storage renters drive safely, provide them a good drive way system.

Gotta laugh. This post just hit 200 views. While I was plowing snow and thinking about "Driveways" as a topic, I thought this would be the least read and boring topic. Yet it beats, how to finance, where to build, will they come, how to value, etc topics.

Curious what drew you to this post? Was it just Drive ways? The Self storage component? Give me some input, otherwise I'm going to do a post on Fences or Light bulbs we use. Thanks.

Special shout out to "Jim Croce and James Taylor" today. Snowy and 9 degree high with a -5 low. They are keeping me company while I catch up on paperwork.