Well you know 1, Concrete is permanent! If for say 2 years after doing it, a new survey say you have to move it it back 8 inches.. Like earlier mentioned I only learn the hard way! To move my pole barn (stone floors) 8 inches is a 1 day job.. Moving a 20 foot section of sidewalk and footing for a Porch etc, without equipment because that would be trespassing, was a week job. Cost to argue in court was 2x,xxx minimum and town fines were 150 a day til finished!
I've heard tractor and car collectors say that stuff rusts faster in a barn with concrete floors. Might be something to it, as I can see how gravel or stone might absorb moisture. I add a little concrete now and then in my buildings, little at a time is less painful.
What I have always heard (and experienced) is just the opposite...rust is worse in a building without concrete floors...but there may be a difference between bare dirt and gravel too...
Your not alone. I had someone botch a survey on a lake last year. It was a fifty thousand dollar foundation too. On top of the ex governors property line. Three foot wide footers, by a foot deep. #5 REBAR everywhere. Expensive fix.
If money isn't an issue I would put a concrete floor in without hesitation. Tire chains on your tractor might ding it up a little, but that's easy to fix by laying down a couple sheets of plywood near the door to park on. The only reason why I would opt for something other than concrete, aside from $, is if I were parking something with cleated/steel tracks (i.e. dozer) in there.
hauling prices are about double the material costs around here, couple that with weight limits on roads in spring, some all year, and it gets pricy.
Camber, foot deeps not bad frost line here 4.5 foot deep. Yeah expensive, all labor.. And of course trucking..
I love my town, about 100 people are old enough to vote in town, and 52 of them are related to me. Our annual town meeting is on the 3rd Saturday in March, but we get together and decide how the town will run for the next year on the Third Friday in March. Sometimes a relative will vote outside the box and have to be ex-communicated from the family for awhile, and sometimes we get people from away who don't understand certain things, but most of the time the town runs pretty smooth. $167,000 to have the roads plowed every year...pass without a squabble. $250 for Little League, that will take 30 minutes to debate I cannot make this stuff up. If a Code Enforcement Officer told me to move a footing, I would probably laugh. We have been here since before the country was even a country (1746) so on almost everything we are grandfathered. Not that it would happen. The last time the CEO was here, he never even got out of his truck. "Just had to make an appearance".
I messed that up. Should have mentioned the eight inch walls on those footers. Oh, they were 12 foot high walls also. Daylight basement looking into a lake. Super ouch! Concrete is expensive. I pay 130 a yard of 3500. I charge by the yard at 350 with bar. Not worth the money otherwise.
Your bug ripping around my screen gives me the creeps, just took another look. If you have many like that at your place, I'd go with more concrete.
The way you described mixing gravel, and cement is what i have helped to do on county roads, its called CTB, or Cement Treated Base. But, we'd use a big machine that had a front and rear drive with big carbide tipped cutters to grind the old road way up. Then, the grader would work it, eventually they would have the dry cement truck come in and cover it , then work it with the grader again, mixing it together, while adding water, not a lot, but, enough to help it start to set up. Then roll it down with a roller. We would use this in especially wet, or clay area's, works like a charm, and holds up great. Using a rototiller is basically the same method on a smaller scale, I've done the same thing on my place building a short driveway to haul my wood into my back yard.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This I did my driveway with asphalt grindings that were sifted to just allow the fines. Spread with a tractor bucket drove on for a couple days then added some more grindings on top and ran a plate compactor to pack it solid. Sprayed it with Diesel Fuel with a backpack sprayer and let it sit for a weekend. The diesel "reactivates" the asphalt and re attaches to itself turns out very solid. My drive as been in 3 winters and it is just now needing some attention (but the existing base was not in good shape when we did it in the first place) A neighbor saw my drive and he bought some grindings for the floor of his lean to where he stores a tractor and a pickup and is very pleased as well. An in my case, the grindings were cheaper than 57 limestone.
