#57 Limestone: Clean 3/16 to 1 Inch Stone for Ohio Drainage Work

Tip a scoop of it out and you can see what it is for. The pieces are roughly fingertip to golf ball, sharply broken rather than rounded, pale gray with the dust knocked off, and when you push your hand into the pile it stays open instead of closing around your fingers. There is no stone dust binding it together. #57 limestone is graded to that one band on purpose, and the open channels you can see between the pieces are the product.

That matters on ground like ours. Lake plain clay holds water at the surface for weeks after a spring thaw, and the dense subsoil on the northeast plateau perches water above it. A layer of clean stone gives that water a route it can actually take.

Size, grading and the one thing #57 limestone will not do

Ohio suppliers sell clean stone by ODOT size number rather than by inch measurement, so #57 is the term to ask for, and the number describes the size band the material is screened to. Two things follow from that grading. The pieces interlock because they are angular, which is why a layer of them holds a shape better than rounded gravel does. And because the small stuff has been screened out, the voids stay open, so the layer passes water and never sets up firm underfoot the way a graded base course does.

Three jobs on one Ohio property, and the part this stone plays in each

The low spot is the one people get wrong most often. Dumping clean stone into a hollow and covering it with soil does not drain anything, because the stone has nowhere to send the water. It only works when the trench has fall and an outlet.

How it behaves on lake plain clay against a sand and gravel knoll

On the flat clay of the northwest and along the lake, the ground below the trench is not going to take the water, so the drain has to carry it somewhere: a ditch, a tile, or lower ground away from the house. Wrapping the stone in geotextile matters more there than almost anywhere, because sticky clay and silt migrate into the voids and a blinded drain stops working quietly, with no sign at the surface until the wet patch comes back.

On the glaciated plateau of the northeast and east-central counties, water perches on a dense subsoil layer but valley outwash and gravel knolls drain freely, so two ends of the same property can behave nothing alike. In the southeast hills the problem is speed rather than standing water: runoff comes off the slopes fast, and stone at a culvert outlet has to be sized for the energy arriving, not for the average day.

Through winter, freeze-thaw works on anything holding water. A drainage layer that stays open and empty does not heave; one that is packed with silt behaves like wet soil and lifts whatever is over it.

Running the yards for a 40 foot ditch line and a low spot

Take a hypothetical ditch line, 40 feet long and 4 feet wide, lined 6 inches deep.

• Area: 40 x 4 = 160 square feet
• Depth: 6 inches = 0.5 feet
• Volume: 160 x 0.5 = 80 cubic feet
• Cubic yards: 80 / 27 = 3.0 cubic yards

And a hypothetical French drain through a low spot, a trench 60 feet long by 18 inches wide with 12 inches of stone in it:

• Width: 18 inches = 1.5 feet, so 60 x 1.5 = 90 square feet
• Volume: 90 x 1 = 90 cubic feet
• Cubic yards: 90 / 27 = 3.3 cubic yards

Round both up a touch, because a trench cut by machine is always a little wider than the one you drew. Tonnage depends on the density figure the site applies to this material, so put the same measurements into the stone calculator and let it convert. As an approximate figure, this site publishes about 2,800 lb per cubic yard for #57 and 3/4 inch crushed stone, near enough 1.40 tons per yard, so the ditch line at 3.0 yards is roughly 4.2 tons and the French drain at 3.3 yards about 4.6 tons.

What to have sorted before the truck arrives

Delivery is arranged at checkout once you enter the ZIP code, and you choose the quantity and the date on this page. Clean stone rolls, so think about where the pile lands: a flat spot on the drive or on plywood, not a slope, and not so close to the trench that the spoil pile and the stone pile run together. Give the truck a clear approach and room to raise a bed, and stake the drop if the obvious spot is not the one you want.

If the trench is open before the material arrives, have the fabric and the pipe ready to go in on the same visit. An open trench in an Ohio spring fills with water and slumps its sides overnight.

Measure the run, work the yards, then set a quantity and a date above. For a drain that has to reach an outlet across awkward ground, send the layout through the contact page and Ohio Rock Supply can sanity-check the quantity with you.