Pee...er, Pea Gravel Question - Page 1

Here's a question for those of you who are familiar with pea gravel. The gravel in our large dog yard has reached the point where there are large bare spots, and the dogs are beginning to dig, and track dirt into the house, so I am planning to purchase a load of gravel.

Where they have dug down, I can see there is a very hard compacted layer of gravel and sand about 6 to 8 inches thick. Underneath this is a layer of sandy soil. Would it be a good idea to remove at least part of this layer when putting down the new gravel? I can see two advantages to this: 1. Improved drainage, and 2. it will prevent the gravel from building up to the point where it is spilling out through the fence onto the grass.

Next question: what is the ideal thickness for a layer of gravel? Knowing this will help me estimate how much to order.

I would LOVE to put down concrete in this area, but I would need to install a drainage system, and the whole thing just gets too complicated and WAAAYYY too expensive! One of the big complications is that our well is just outside of this dog yard, so any drainage has to drain away from that area, and towards the kennel and house. 

Sand is and sandy soil is excellent for drainage. pea gravel tends to be round and therefore doesn't settle. the dogs will continuously kick it around into the grass. gravel that is made from crushed stone with sand on top can create a more "solid" surface that still drains easily. 4" of gravel should be enough.


A drainage system isn't terribly complicated, slope the concrete to a channel and then to an inlet to your public sewage system or create a mini septic system for your dogs. its a bit of digging, but works like a charm....... http://www.backwoodssurvivalblog.com/2009/03/how-to-construct-small-septic-system.html 

 

Yup. Remove as much of the compacted gravel/soil and lay in more pea gravel. It's a chore for sure, hard labor, but better than concrete IMO.

    We used pea gravel for years and it would not stay level so the drainage was bad. We had bare spots everywhere so the dogs would dig and make mud holes...;)

     A couple of years ago we removed all the pea gravel, dug down about 5 to 6 inches, and poured #57 river rocks. The drainage is great, the rock settles in  and do not move. The river rock is a smoother stone, so it is not bad for footing.....: )

   

Whenever you can get soil to drain, it's a good thing. I favor #9 gravel myself about 4" thick. It stays loose as long as the dogs don't dig. #57 is a bit big for me but it's stable. We only have the crushed #57 around here.

Crusher run, 21A, pit fines or anything with fines tends to pack as hard as concrete. You'll have puddles in the low areas and your dog's elbows will get the fines embedded into the elbows and make bare spots of embedded soil. Nasty stuff stay with the numbered sizes free of fines below the 1/4" sieve.

Oops, double post.

SM, I'd LOVE to install something like that! Here's the problem. The dog yard in question is surrounded on 3 sides. To the east is the corridor between the kennel and the house, which also includes the entry to the garage. To the south is the house itself. To the north are the runs for the main kennel, which are concrete. To the west is a large open field, which would be an ideal place for the yard to drain to, if our stupid well weren't just 20 feet outside the fence!

The only possibility I've come up with is to have the yard drain into the two drainage channels which run through the main kennel. However, I'm not sure if they are deep enough to contain the runoff. One of the channels drains out onto the grass, and the other drains into a plastic barrel which is buried in the ground. The water is supposed to seep out of it through holes punched in its lower half and into the surrounding soil. Unfortunately, the barrel is only about 20 feet away from a huge weeping willow tree, which has filled up the bottom third of the barrel with its roots. I've installed a sump pump in the barrel, and pump it out when it needs it. In the winter, however, the whole thing freezes solid, and it took me until May to get the drainage working again!

are you on public sweage or on a septic system?

living in the city, and on the city sewage system, i use this and it works very, very well
http://www.doggiedoodrain.com/home.php it can be used for a septic system, if the system is sized for it......with a garden hose, huge amounts of waste can be flushed down the funnel in a matter of a few seconds.

we installed the mini septic system on our property in the country for our vacations....camping is fun - but i insisted on a flushing toilet, hot shower and a place to do the dishes.....and it works like a charm.

Forget money, I don't like the dogs on concrete all the time. You can't tell me that's good for their joints. That is NOT a natural surface. I have one covered kennel for Caleb when I'm not home. I put a whole bunch of LARGE wood chips down  and just have big concrete squares around the perimeter to keep him from digging out. There's enough concrete that he can lie on it if he prefers, or he can lie in the wood chips or in his huge wooden dog house. I prefer to always give them a choice of what to stand/lie on.