Gravel Delivery for Ohio Drives Built on Wet Glacial Clay

The orders that go sideways in this state mostly go sideways the same way: one material, at one depth, for a job that needed two layers. A drive or an equipment pad on Ohio clay is a compacted base with a running surface over it, so gravel delivery for that job means sizing two quantities rather than one. The catalogue, the calculators and the checkout here are built around that split, and around ground that keeps hold of the winter until the flats finally drain.

What goes down first on glacial till, and what goes over it

The base course is 304 limestone, sold here as 304 Aggregate Base. It is a 1 inch minus graded mix of crushed stone, gravel and binding fines, and ODOT writes it into specifications as Item 304, which is the term Ohio contractors and county crews use when they order it. Rolled in lifts, the fines wedge the larger pieces together and the layer begins carrying weight instead of shifting under it.

The running surface is 411 limestone, listed as 411 Stone: 3/4 inch minus stone with the fines left in, packed tight over a finished base. Clean stone does neither job. #57 limestone carries no fines, so water runs straight through it and the stone rolls under a tire. That is precisely why it belongs in a French drain rather than beneath a truck.

Ground that drains, and ground that keeps the water at the surface

Ohio is not one subgrade. The lake plain running from Toledo across to Lorain is flat, sticky former lake bed that holds rain and snowmelt near the surface until ditches and field tile draw it off. The till plains of the west and center are clay loam over rolling ground, firm on the low ridges and wet in the swales between them. Northeast of there, water perches on a dense subsoil layer, and lake-effect snow in the snowbelt pushes the working season back by weeks. The southeast hills invert the problem: thin soils over shale and sandstone, runoff moving fast down narrow valleys, and slopes that slip after a long wet spell.

Frost reaches roughly 32 inches through much of the state and about 36 inches in parts of northern Ohio, with each building department setting its own figure. No stone layer is ever built that deep. What a base can do is stay dry and shed water off a crown, and that is the reasoning behind every depth on this site.

Stone by number, soil by the yard: the 24 materials stocked

Ohio suppliers name clean stone by its size number, so the catalogue does too.

• Base and surface: 304 Aggregate Base, 411 Stone, Driveway Gravel and Screenings for a compacted paver bed.
• Clean stone by size: #57 Limestone and Drain Rock cover most drainage, concrete and wall backfill work, with #4 for trench bottoms and construction entrances, #67 a size down from the 57, and #8 for pipe bedding and paver joints.
• Erosion work: RipRap on ditch banks and culvert outlets, railroad ballast for hard standing that has to drain under load.
• Decorative and underfoot: River Rock, pea gravel and walkway gravel.
• Sand, soil and cover: mason sand and washed sand for bedding and joints, Top Soil and garden soil for growing, fill dirt for grade, and Shredded Mulch over the beds.

Stone and gravel are sold by the ton. Soil and mulch are sold by the yard. The unit shown on each product page is the unit the checkout will ask for, so there is nothing to convert by hand.

Getting from a tape measure to a tonnage you can order

Area times depth, converted into yards, then weighted for the material: length in feet times width in feet times depth in inches divided by 12, all divided by 27. A hypothetical 24 by 30 foot parking apron at 6 inches of base works out at 720 square feet, 360 cubic feet, and 13.3 cubic yards. Using the weight this site publishes for road base and crusher run, about 3,000 lb per cubic yard or 1.50 tons per yard, that is roughly 20 tons for the base alone, before the surface layer is counted.

The material calculators do that arithmetic for all 24 products and hold the right weight for each one, which matters because shredded mulch runs about 600 lb per cubic yard against that same 3,000 lb. Size the base in the road base calculator and the topping separately in the gravel calculator.

Gravel delivery onto a farm lane that has to carry the truck

Quantity and date are chosen on the product page, and delivery is arranged at checkout from the ZIP code you enter. Material lands as a pile where you mark it, and the delivery page covers the access, the marking and what happens if the lane will not carry a loaded truck.

Ordering around an Ohio spring rather than through it

Frozen or saturated clay will not compact, so base, driveway and paver work waits for the ground to thaw and drain, then runs into late fall. Drainage work is different: a ditch bank losing ground in the March storms is worth armoring as soon as you can reach it. Measure over the winter, size the layers, and order for a week the lane can carry it. Site-specific questions can go to Ohio Rock Supply through the contact page, or start in the common ordering questions, and what sits behind the storefront covers the part between checkout and the truck.