If you have pea gravel under your play set..

[JTsMom]

how did you get it there? Did you do it by hand, or rent heavy equipment? Our area is HUGE, and I just can't see trying to haul it down our long driveway and shoveling it.

[brittone2]

We had it at our house in NC. We had a dump druck deliver and then we wheelbarrowed it into place, but our play area was very close to the driveway (where we had the stone dumped).

[JTsMom]

Did it take a long time? I think we're going to have about 27 tons to deal with.

[brittone2]

My memory is fuzzy (selective memory on this one maybe...). DH did the bulk of the work and he doesn't really mind physical labor. I remember DS1 helping with his RF wheelbarrow.

I don't remember it taking more than a week or two of sporadic work. I don't recall how many tons we had delivered but it was a large area and pretty deep, so it was definitely not a small load. We had two deliveries IIRC.

[JTsMom]

Yeah, I'm thinking Bobcat rental is sounding good. lol

[Pinky]

Wow. 27 tons is a lot. Did I read that correctly? Do you know how many square feet the area is? I think if I was you I'd rent a dingo (like a bobcat only you walk behind it, you dont ride on it... less yard destruction etc) if there is no way you can have it dumped right on the spot you need it.

[justlearning]

We got 15 tons of pea gravel, which turned out to be more than we needed. (I was trying to find all the safety requirements but we still could have gotten away with less for our relatively small space.)

DH and I did have to move it all in a wheel barrow from our front driveway down our relatively steep slope into the backyard. It was a LOT of work and we later said that we really should have paid someone else to do it. In our case, our narrow fence wouldn't have been enough space for a bobcat to get through, but if you're able to do that, go for it!

[infomama]

Dump truck and a lot of shoveling.

[Jo..]

We had it at our house in NC. We had a dump druck deliver and then we wheelbarrowed it into place, but our play area was very close to the driveway (where we had the stone dumped).

That's what we did. but it was still a HUGE job that took a couple weeks. We had 28 tons.

[hellokitty]

They brought it by truck, backed it in and then used a bob cat. Problem is that it was so muddy that they truck got stuck on our lawn for a few hrs (had to get another truck to tow it out) and it tore up some of our lawn and our neighbors. They repaired it. I suggest that if you do have to get a truck to come in, have it done when it is really hot (july/aug) or when the ground is still frozen, for the very issue that I just mentioned above.

[JTsMom]

Wow. 27 tons is a lot. Did I read that correctly? Do you know how many square feet the area is? I think if I was you I'd rent a dingo (like a bobcat only you walk behind it, you dont ride on it... less yard destruction etc) if there is no way you can have it dumped right on the spot you need it.


It may actually be 26, not that that helps much!

We bought this set:
http://www.bjs.com/adventure-playsets-mt-rainier-wooden-play-center-with-built-in-picnic-table.product.124951

We came up with the tonnage based on the following:
With a 6 ft perimeter, it would be 30x30, but we're going to cut it back a bit on the side of the swings, a little on the front and back to make it 24x28=672 sq ft. Divide by 27 for sq yds=24.88=34.8 tons at 12" thick, 17.5ish at 6", 26.15 at 9" thick. So if we went by the strictest recs, we should technically have even more (46.6 tons!), but I'm comfortable with the compromise.

We have a long sloping driveway, and they're bringing the gravel in on a semi which could actually fit, but would probably crack it, so they're going to dump it on the street. Luckily, the side of our yard is still just clay (new construction), so no worries about tearing up the yard.

It's $125 to rent a Bobcat for 1/2 a day, so I'm thinking that's probably the way to go.

[Pinky]

We have a long sloping driveway, and they're bringing the gravel in on a semi which could actually fit, but would probably crack it, so they're going to dump it on the street. Luckily, the side of our yard is still just clay (new construction), so no worries about tearing up the yard.

It's $125 to rent a Bobcat for 1/2 a day, so I'm thinking that's probably the way to go.

Definitely check to see if they have a Dingo... well that is unless you have experience driving a bobcat. I'm sure you could figure it out but the Dingo was so easy to use and we felt like we had more control because you walk behind it rather than ride on it. It still has a loader and all that so will work just as well. It will be so worth the price of the rental. Moving rocks is HARD work, you'll be glad you got the rental for sure. Good luck!

[JTsMom]

They did have them on there for about the same price. Is using it physically draining? Not to sound like a slacker, but that's the whole point, kwim. lol

My mom keeps wanting us to just borrow her tractor cart and wheelbarrow, but I think that's insane! I keep telling her 26 TONS!!!! They're bringing it in on a semi Mom! lol We aren't spring chickens, and we don't have tons of time to do it slowly since it'll be in the street.

[Pinky]

They did have them on there for about the same price. Is using it physically draining? Not to sound like a slacker, but that's the whole point, kwim. lol

My mom keeps wanting us to just borrow her tractor cart and wheelbarrow, but I think that's insane! I keep telling her 26 TONS!!!! They're bringing it in on a semi Mom! lol We aren't spring chickens, and we don't have tons of time to do it slowly since it'll be in the street.

Definitely don't use the wheelbarrow method. LOL Tell your mom she's welcome to come over and push the wheelbarrow if she feels so inclined. I hear ya about not being spring chickens. Same here.

The Dingo moves itself so you don't have to do anything. Now that I think about it you don't even have to walk behind it because it has a little platform that you stand on, so super easy to use! We didn't have any experience with heavy machinery like that when we did one and I was honestly afraid we'd run the bobcat through the house or something. Ok, not really but it would be much easier for it to get away from you and hit a fence with the loader etc. When we went to the rental company they told us the Dingo was easier for first timers to use and then again the big factor for us was that it's not as heavy as a bobcat and doesn't tear up the rest of the ground as much. I know this sounds weird but we actually had a ton of fun with the Dingo and it made our project much much easier. We actually used it for digging post holes (installed a fence ourselves) because they have an digger attachment you can use with it.

[JTsMom]

Great, thanks for all of the info. DH will be thrilled b/c he saw them use a dingo on some landscaping show, and has been wanting to play with...er, I mean work with one ever since. ;)

What did you all use for the edge of your perimeter?

[Pinky]

Great, thanks for all of the info. DH will be thrilled b/c he saw them use a dingo on some landscaping show, and has been wanting to play with...er, I mean work with one ever since. ;)

What did you all use for the edge of your perimeter?

Have fun with it! We seriously had a blast and played with it the whole weekend (the place we rented from was closed on Sunday so you got to keep it til Monday).

We didn't use ours for loading gravel, we used it for digging holes so I'm not sure about edging. Our local park has that hard plastic black edging and it seems to work but I would dread digging the trench to install it properly.

[bubbaray]

We only did 6", the area was 20x20, DH says that was 7.5 cubic yards. DH wheelbarrowed. DH says he gets different math from your numbers 9" deep should be 18.5 yards. (don't ask me, I'm just the messenger -- I can't even add!)

FWIW, we have been plenty happy with the 6" depth.

[AngelaS]

We had a dump truck load of gravel dumped on the driveway and then we used a wheel barrow to move the pea gravel to the backyard. It was a LOT of work. :P We have about 6 inches of gravel under our set.

[JTsMom]

Melissa, I just PM'ed you back, but I should have thought to check this post first.

I would love to get less, so someone please find a mistake somewhere for me! I'm trying to balance a reasonable amount of safety for my crazy daredevil boys, with budget- so far, budget is losing. lol

How did you guys arrive at 6"? I was going off of this:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/324.pdf

9" does seem like a lot, but I didn't want to go with less if it wouldn't be safe b/c then we'd be shelling out all of that money for nothing, kwim? CPSC actually says 12" so that it will compress to 9", but I had to draw the line somewhere! I don't know for sure what the max fall height is, but my two big areas of concern are the monkey bars, and the rock wall. I can totally see Zachary jumping off the top of the monkey bars some day. I'm pretty sure the monkey bars are somewhere in the 5-6 ft range. If it's only 5', the min. rec is 9", so that would put me in the rec'd zone. The total height is 12'1", so that looks about right, right?

The formulas I used I pulled from Jo's post here:
http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=288810&highlight=pea+gravel

"To figure out how much gravel you will need, multiply the length by the width (so in my case 22x30=660). This number is your cubic feet. Divide by 27 to get your cubic yardage (in my case about 24). A rough estimate for pea gravel is 1.4 tons per cubic yards, so multiply 24x1.4 to get about 34 tons. Voila! That is how much gravel I would need at 12" thick. You can adjust your math for various thicknesses (e.g. 6" thick would be 17 tons, 9" thick would be 25.5 tons, etc.)."

Ooooh- I'm googling in a different tab and found a gravel calculator here
http://www.ataktrucking.com/materials-calculator/gravel-calculator
that says the cubic yards would be 18.67-hmmmmmmmm. I'm going to have to google some more, but I'm being paged. I'll be back, and I'm crossing my fingers!

[bubbaray]

Ooooh- I'm googling in a different tab and found a gravel calculator here
http://www.ataktrucking.com/materials-calculator/gravel-calculator
that says the cubic yards would be 18.67-hmmmmmmmm. I'm going to have to google some more, but I'm being paged. I'll be back, and I'm crossing my fingers!


Just asked DH, he said he got 18.66 but rounded down (why? I would round that up???).

Like in my PM, he says cubic yards is for volume (what you need), tons are for weight (what you do not want to know as they don't sell pea gravel by the ton).

We used 6" instead of 9" because we used 4x6 rough timber as the border (ie., the border was 6" deep). ETA: Looking at ours after 2 years of rain, it doesn't look like it compressed. Its pea gravel, not chips, not sure why they would say it would compress. ETA#2: our monkey bars are over 6' high (DH, 6', can walk underneath them). There is also a platform that is the same height. I would guess they are 6.5' high?? DD#1 jumps off the monkey bars into the 6" of gravel all the time. FWIW, I know for a fact that at her school they don't have 12" or even 9" of chips under the playground. It looks more like 6" and it has compressed big time in the past year.

I have a ton (ha ha ha) of construction pictures. I can post them tonight if they will be helpful. He did it all himself -- the site prep, the hauling of the gravel, the building of the play structure.

[JTsMom]

Thinking spatially is not a strength of mine. This may require another cup of coffee. lol Ok, yes, that's the cubic yards, but to convert that to tons we need to multiply by 1.4.

ok, volume of a rectangular prism=LxWxH, right?
24x28x.75=504 cf (The .75 is 9/12 inches since we're working with feet)

To convert the cubic ft to cubic yds we divide by 27, and we get 18.666.

The weight of pea gravel per cubic yard is appx 1.4 tons, (and I'm seeing that figure in multiple places so I assume it's correct), so we get 26.1333 tons.

I know we must have someone here who's a math wiz- am I making a mistake somewhere?

[bubbaray]

Have you checked with your supplier that they want a weight measure and not a volume measure for your order?

[JTsMom]

Yeah, everyone has asked us how many tons we need. It seems like an easy jump from the cubic yards to tons though, unless I'm missing something.

ETA: I know there are different sizes of gravel though- I'm sure that would come into play.