# Forum Home Renovation Landscaping, Gardening & Outdoors  Road-base cement mix

## Rossluck

Has anyone tried mixing roadbase and cement powder to form a hard driveway surface? Is it worth doing?

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## mic-d

No, but you need to have some form of agregate in the concrete therwise its really just mortar. 
Cheers
Michael

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## ian

I've done it at work
Depending upon your road base you use up to 5% cement.
When we did it "by hand" we spread bulk cement on top of the road base, mixed it with a grader, watered it, mixed it again before spreading and rolling it with a largeish vibrating roller.  
It was much easier when we used a pulvi mixer, which is a like a big rotary hoe, which you connect to the bulk cement and water trucks.  
For a small driveway, you should be able to mix what you need using a bob cat or alternatively just buy the stuff ready mixed from one of the quarries.  
ian

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## Rossluck

Does it end up being pretty solid, Ian? I want to do a fairly large area so that I can run a hard-tyred forklift on it. Does it last?

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## Bluegum

We do it when customers ask for it when building a road base driveway.  I can see some advatage to doing it.  We spread the road base with a bobcat then toss the cement powder over it and water down.  Well we used to till level 3 water restrictions started last night.

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## Dan_574

down here we can get stabilise which is basically fines pre mixed with up to 15% cement, it sets rock hard(concrete hard) and works a treat.  My neighbour has it as a temporary/permanent solution to his driveway which is pretty steep.  Put in with a  skid steer and then compacted with a plate, left for 2/3 days to go off and its fine.

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## Harry72

Chrusher dust sets very hard... and extremely hard if some cement is mixed in.
Not much will survive constant use with a solid tyred fork, except high strength concrete and steel! 
I've seen concrete(suposed high hardness)last 2 days at work.(we'd have several sq Km's of it!)

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## bitingmidge

As Harry says, mixing cement with roadbase doesn't make it stronger necessarily, it does make it more stable in terms of water erosion. 
If you want strength, you need: compaction of the sub-base, a suitable thickness, and a wearing surface.   Take a look at how roads are made to see what I'm getting at. 
Having said that, as long as you are prepared to maintain it occasionally, it'll last a long, long time.  :Wink:   
If you properly compact, you may get away without the cement too. 
Cheers, 
P

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## ian

> Does it end up being pretty solid, Ian? I want to do a fairly large area so that I can run a hard-tyred forklift on it. Does it last?

  If you're going to run a hard tyred forklift over it the answer is no, it doesn't last.  The problem is not so much with the strength of the material, its the screwing action when you change direction with the fork.  Over time you'll wear holes in the surface.  Your best surfaces for a fork are concrete, asphalt or interlocking pavers. 
ian

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## Rossluck

> If you're going to run a hard tyred forklift over it the answer is no, it doesn't last. 
> ian

  Well that's torn it! I'll just have to put a slab down. Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the info.

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## ian

You've not said much about how big your forklift is or what sort of loads it will be carrying or what sort of area you want/need to cover, or where you're carrying loads to and from.  
You may need something more than a "simple" concrete slab.   
In my other life I sometimes build roads.  The concrete spec for a road tends to be a bit specialised (230mm 32MPa slab sitting on top of a 170mm lower strength base slab, concrete drying shrinkage to be less than 600 micro strain, water cement ratio about 0.38) while this is good enough to support the passage of a few million truck axles, it wont stand up to the point loads exerted by some fork lifts.  
Before you commit I suggest you talk to a pavement engineer.  
ian

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## Harry72

Yes thats very good advice!
Asphalt is ok long as its base is concrete hard, most of our concrete about is 18" thick and covered by asphalt.
Our forks a constantly loaded to the maximum(lead industry)and most turning maneuvers are at full lock, forks range from 2.5~25T.
In the very high wearing areas(corners etc) steel plate is laid down... and the steel caterpillar(non coated) tracks will kill any surface except steel!

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## Rossluck

It's not as serious as all of that. I live on 2.5 acres and every month or so we get a delivery for our business. The delivery is only three pallets, but a nightmare unload by hand. Just recently I bought a forklift for $1000 (plus $160 for delivery). It's a Clark C500-50 that can lift 2.2 tonnes. It had a bad hydraulic hose leak, and I replaced the hose.  
But I'm new to forklifts, and argued with the tow truck mob that went to pick it up. The manager asked what it could carry, and when I said 2.2 tonnes, he said "well, it must weight around 4 tonnes". "No", I said, "it's only a little thing". But he was right, and I bogged it on hard ground within minutes.  
I think in my case a 6m by 6m slab with heavy mesh will enable me to unload the odd truck. It should be just enough to pull it off the truck and dump it on racks off the slab.

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## ian

I still suggest you talk to a pavement engineer.
It should be money well spent.
All the advice you've received has been a bit in the dark as it were
things you must consider, if you don't want to end up under the fork some day, are
access to both sides of the truck delivering your pallets
stable ground so that the delivery truck doesn't bog or more importantly you tip the fork — a fork is not particularly stable when you've got the load up in the air, and edges of slabs have been known to give way.
where are you going to park the fork
how convenient it will be to carry stuff from the racks to where you use it
etc  
ian

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