Driveway project going wrong - Have I been given a bad 'MOT Type 1'

[apr8778]

Afternoon everyone, I've just joined the forum to get some opinions on my situation, it's driving me crazy.

For a while I've been excavating an area of my front garden, for a driveway parking area, plan is to gravel it, it's a sloped area within a retaining wall, sub soil is hard clay I believe.

I ordered a delivery of quarried 'MOT Type 1 - 803 spec' referred to as Dolomite in our area quite often, the company is called Scott Bros in the North East of England.

I used Terram1000, and a biaxial Geogrid, laid the MOT down roughly 75mm loose, compacted it with a 58kg plate, it seemed perfect when I initially did it, dry weather.
Over the past week, it's rained on and off (no torrential rain) and the result is a sloppy mess, see my images.

Every part of the area is like this, regardless of location on the slope, if I walk on most of it, my food will go straight through into the below grid/terram.

Can I recover this in anyway, or should I contact the merchant and dispute the quality of the product.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[JohnD]

Click "edit " to delete your duplicate pics, then "report" and ask the mods to move it to the "building" section.

"Your projects" is for showing off pics of work you have done.

 

[apr8778]

Ah apologies guys.

Mods, can you please move this to the building section.

Thanks

 

[stevie888]

Type 1 doesn't look too bad, it's just totally saturated and needs to dry out before you recompact it. It was almost certainlty not properly compacted in the first place or the water wouldn't have got into it likr this

75mm isn't really a thick enough layer by the by

 

[matlob]

I've always compacted in layers as it's harder to compact 75mm in one go

 

[apr8778]

Type 1 doesn't look too bads fine, it's just totally saturated and needs to dry out before you recompact it. It was almost certainlty not properly compacted in the firwst place or the water wouldn't have got into it likr this

75mm isn't really a thick enough layer by the by

Thanks for the reply.

So do you reckon this is a suitable product?

The compactor I used was only 58kg, which sounds like it's on the light side, I was planning to put another layer down.

Does anything think I could put a layer of clean 20/40mm stone over this, and get a much heavier compactor, and recover it? Feel like I'm in abit of a sticky situation.

 

[jj4091]

I had similar problem with the sub-base jellifying when wet. As has beesn said add some more of the course stuff and compact it again when dry.
Might be a bit late in the year now.

 

[^woody^]

Looks like there is way too much fine and dust.

There should be no footprints in compacted mot even when it's saturated.

 

[JohnD]

Mine was compacted down hard as concrete.

 

[endecotp]

If it were mine, I’d be tempted to dig up a small bucket full and see how much goes through a garden sieve. Weigh before and after. Then compare with the spec.

(I’ve not immediately found an “official”-looking spec, but this page:

MOT Type 1 vs Type 3 Aggregate Sieve Specifications and Fines Control - Allmac

The Role of Granular Sub-Bases in Pavement Engineering In flexible pavement design, the sub-base functions as the primary structural platform, transferring wheel loads from the surfacing layers to the underlying subgrade while controlling drainage and frost susceptibility. For residential...

allmac.co.uk

says that 40 to 70% of it is supposed to pass through a 16mm sieve. I’m surprised that it’s such a wide range.)