Grading & Leveling
Land grading in Shelby, NC. We cut, fill and compact so your yard, pad or gravel drive sits flat and sheds water instead of holding it.
Home Our Work About Contact Call (704) 600-8146
A gravel driveway in Shelby, NC has to move water before it can carry trucks. The red clay here takes in water at about half an inch per hour, so storms run off. We build the drive to shed that water with a shaped base and a proper crown. Our trucks bring the stone in and spread it. We install new gravel driveways, repair worn ones, and regrade drives gone flat or rutted.
Most drives we look at have the same problem. The crown is gone, so water runs down the wheel tracks and cuts them deeper. Adding stone alone does not fix that. We reshape the surface, pull the shoulders back, then add stone and roll it in. On a new drive through woods, our land clearing work opens the path first. Then the base and the stone go down. Every job starts with a free on-site estimate, and we set a date after that.
Tell us about your land and we’ll get right back to you.
Cost follows the ground more than the stone. Published cost data from LawnStarter puts a gravel driveway at about $1 to $3 per square foot installed. Their national average sits near $1,500. That range moves with length, width and how much base the soil will need. A short drive on firm ground is a small job. A long lane over soft red clay needs 12 to 18 inches of base under the surface stone. Haul distance for the stone moves the number too.
Schedule works the same way. We come look at the ground first and price the job from what we see. After the estimate we set a date. Most residential drives are a day or two of machine time once the stone is on site. A drive that needs a pipe under it takes longer. That side of the job sits with our culvert and ditch work. Wet weather moves dates. We wait for the ground to dry before shaping a base. Stone pressed into soft clay is stone you buy twice.
Two things do the damage here. Shelby averages 47.89 inches of rain a year, and about 15 of those days drop an inch or more. A 2-year, 15-minute storm here runs near 3.8 inches per hour under NOAA Atlas 14. Our Cecil red clay soils hold 35 to 70 percent clay in the subsoil. That water has nowhere to go but across the top. A flat drive turns into a creek. The FHWA gravel roads guide calls for a crown of about half an inch per foot of width. It also caps the crown at 6 percent.
Most washed out drives we see lost the crown years ago. Water found the low wheel track and stayed in it. Once a rut is cut, every storm makes it deeper and carries the fines downhill. The fix is to cut the shape back in before any stone goes on. We reshape the surface, pull the shoulder material back up, and roll the stone into a crust. Our post on repairing a washed out gravel driveway walks through what that costs and how long it holds.
Stone choice decides how the drive holds up. ABC stone, what most people around here call crusher run, is the standard driving surface in North Carolina. It carries a mix of sizes plus fines, and those fines lock the surface into a crust under traffic. Surface stone needs roughly 7 to 12 percent fines to do that. Clean 57 stone has no fines at all. It rolls under a tire and never binds. That stone belongs in drainage layers and pipe bedding.
The build runs the same order every time. We strip topsoil and soft material off the path with a dozer or skid steer. We shape the subgrade with a crown so water leaves the surface. On soft ground we lay 12 to 18 inches of base stone before the ABC goes on. Our trucks haul the stone in and carry the spoil off. We build gravel driveways and farm lanes around Shelby, Kings Mountain, Boiling Springs, Lawndale and Cherryville. That covers Cleveland, Gaston, Lincoln and Rutherford counties.
Farm lanes and access roads follow the same rules as a house drive. They usually run longer, cross more grade, and carry heavier trucks, so the base matters more. We also build gravel parking pads and gravel building pads on cleared lots. A pad has to shed water the same as a drive. A larger yard or site that needs shaping sits with our land grading and leveling. NC 811 gets called at least 3 full working days before we dig. Those marks stay good 28 days.
Free, no-obligation estimates across Shelby, NC and 25 miles around.
(704) 600-8146From the first call to the last pass of the rake, here is how it goes.
Tell us where the land is and what you want it to do. We set a time to come see it, usually within a few days.
We look at the ground, the growth and the access in person. You get a real number and a plan before any machine moves.
Our own equipment rides in on our lowboy. Most residential jobs run one to three days, and you see progress the first morning.
Debris is mulched or hauled off and the ground is left ready to use. We look the job over with you before we leave.
Common questions about gravel driveways across Shelby, NC and 25 miles around. Don't see yours? Give us a call and ask.
Land grading in Shelby, NC. We cut, fill and compact so your yard, pad or gravel drive sits flat and sheds water instead of holding it.
Drainage and erosion control around Shelby, from driveway culverts and ditching to swales, washout repair and rip rap on banks.
Excavation around Shelby, NC. Footings, driveway culverts, drainage trenches, pond banks and site prep, with the spoil hauled off in our grapple trucks.
Forestry mulching grinds brush and small trees into a mulch layer where they stand. Nothing gets hauled off and nothing gets burned.
Bush hogging for fields, pastures and overgrown lots around Shelby, NC. Our rotary cutters take down waist high growth, briar and small saplings, and put the ground back in shape.
Tree removal in Shelby, NC for leaning, dead and storm-downed trees. We drop them with machines and haul the wood off.
LDS Solutions runs the way a veteran-owned company should: show up on time, do the work right, leave the place better than you found it. Our own crew runs our own machines.
Tracked mulcher, skid steers, excavators, dozer and grapple trucks, all owned. Your job never waits on a rental yard, and the right machine is always on the trailer.
We come look at the ground in person, tell you what the job takes, and give you a real number before any machine moves. The estimate costs you nothing.
Red clay that ruts when wet, pine and privet that come back every summer, foothill slopes that shed rain sideways. We work this ground every week and plan for it.
Land to clear, a field to mow, trees down from a storm, or a building that needs to come down? Call or send the form. We come look at the ground in person and the estimate is free. We clear land. You build dreams.
Tell us about your land and we’ll get right back to you.