Building walking path on side of house

Hello. I would like to build a simple walking path (approximately 30 feet long) on the side of my house leading to my backyard. The path would supplant grass that is currently there, and also provide a firm grounding for a garbage can on wheels I keep on the side. The path will not be used too often, I will primarily use it to transport my garbage can from the side of the house to the front, and on occasion, use it to access my backyard. I could use some advice.

First and foremost, what is the best material to use that will be 1. Cheapish 2. Look decent and 3. Provide stability. I was thinking about using crushed bluestone 3/8” thick. I’ve also seen some honeycomb products that you pour the stone in to provide stability. Do those work as intended? I was also looking into decomposed granite with a chemical stabilizer, but, I cannot find too many suppliers that carry DG, nor am I a fan of putting chemicals around my house.

Second, laying a foundation. I clearly will have a landscaping mat to keep the weeds down, tamp down the dirt with a hand compactor, but do I need to lay a foundation of larger crushed stone ¾” before placing my smaller crushed stone on? I supposed that depends if I am using the honeycomb stabilizer.

I need help.

-Mike

I would remove 3 ft wide by 4" deep and line the sides with underground treated 4x4. Join pieces together to make them full length with treated 2x4 low on the side so they do't show from the surface. Stack them on the outside with the same 2x4 and cut the tops off on a angle so they don't show later. To tighten up soil, 2" of 3/4" crushed compacted with a rented plate compactor.
Fiberglass landscape fabric, the heavy stuff then something that will compact down. I like crushed limestone mixed from 3/4 down to a sand. It compacts almost like concrete.

Great. Thanks. Do I need to apply any stabilizing product to the limestone or will simply compacting it do the trick? Can I drag a heavy (100lbs) garbage across without having it sink? What's kind of maintenance will this surface require?

mferrigno1950 said:

Great. Thanks. Do I need to apply any stabilizing product to the limestone or will simply compacting it do the trick? Can I drag a heavy (100lbs) garbage across without having it sink? What's kind of maintenance will this surface require?

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Many years ago I built trails in a city park with stairs made out of railroad ties and we put limestone on the trails and never compacted them and they settled to a nice surface, but compacting would do it right now. We can get it easily here might be expensive in some places. Landscape supply yards would be where to get it.

Not sure I want to tell you guys what I did for my paths.

I had an area of lawn where the grass didn’t want to grow and I started trying to figure out why. I was racking it and it was as hard as stone so I decided to loosen the dirt up and one inch below the surface were paving bricks the old owner must have had a pad for a picnic table or something and it got covered over. So I dug them all up and the area was something like 12x16 and I had a pile of bricks. I wanted a path from the driveway to the new hot tub deck and didn’t know if I had enough bricks or not. I laid them out on the grass and mocked up the walk. Holly came out and said aren’t you supposed to dig out the dirt and put stone and I said oh ya I’m just planning the walk. She said she wanted a T in it with another trail to the carport so we laid them on the grass. I had more left over so I made another T over to the water hose so you don’t have to walk thru garden. We had a few more so we widened it on both ends to make a landing. It looked pretty nice and she said now we pick them up and dig it out and put stone and tamp it with a machine. I said sure tomorrow. The next day I told her you guys told me to leave them down a while as they will kill the grass and make digging easy and also mark where to dig. So they sat there for a couple months and during that time they settled in so only about half the height was sticking up. Then I edged the flowerbeds and ended up with a few wheelbarrow loads of strips of sod to get rid of. I laid the strips beside the exposed bricks and stomped them down flush. Instant grass and fill combo. I tapered it out about 2’ on both sides. I had a pile of sand and small stone and I dumped that on and swept it in with a push broom. The next year I added a little more sand and mid summer I hit it with some weed killer.

It has been down now going on 3 years and looks great does the job and I feel like took every shortcut there is. Her dad saw it and said that looks like it was a lot of work. I said dang it was took it down a foot filled it with crushed stone and compacted it by hand and then laid all them bricks. He said can tell you did it right it will last forever.

Total cost zero. The nice thing about bricks is you can curve them around by shifting each one just a little. If I was going straight I would just buy the 2x2 foot pavers that look like brick and toss them down.

If I think about it I will take a pic tomorrow.

I did something similar but not as intensive and just used 1/4 crush by dust and a hand tamper

Here is my no dig two hour walk.

maxdad118, thanks, looks great, but what material did you use exactly, "1/4 crush by dust"? What is that? 1/4" crushed stone with dust? I do not follow... Also, does the top layer shift, blow, or move easily, onto the lawn or concrete patio?

Like Neal said, it’s like concrete when compacted. Unfortunately there’s not much I can tell you about it as shortly after we broke ground for a master bedroom/bath right in that location. It’s crushed granite, the smallest you can get I think, 1/4”. A lot of is granite dust. Spraying it down helps it ‘cure’ ��