New gravel driveways built with a real base, and tired ones regraded, crowned, and drained — so a Franklin driveway survives mud season and the next big storm instead of washing down the hill.
Dig anywhere in central Franklin and you’re digging through history. Mill-era lots carry old foundations, ash fill, brick rubble, and utility lines that don’t appear on any modern map — so every Franklin redevelopment job starts with Dig Safe 811 and, on anything substantial, our own test pits to learn what the ground actually holds before a price gets promised. It’s honest work with real upside: Franklin’s lots are affordable, and good site prep is what makes an old parcel buildable again. Down along the rivers, terraces of sandy soil dig easily but sit near floodplain lines that need checking early. Webster Lake is the other side of our Franklin book — a classic camp lake where seasonal places convert to year-round, bringing full-foundation digs and utility trenches, with the Shoreland Act’s 250-foot rules applying at the water just as they do on Winnipesaukee.
Buying a Franklin infill lot? Spend a few hundred dollars on test pits before you close, or make the purchase contingent on them. Mill-era fill can be fine to build on or can mean over-excavating and importing structural fill — and knowing which one you own changes what the lot is actually worth.
A driveway that lasts is a structure: geotextile where soils are soft, a compacted bank-run gravel base, and a crushed-gravel or stone surface crowned so water runs off the sides instead of down the middle. Culverts go where water crosses, ditches where it runs alongside. Skip any of those and you buy the same driveway again every few years — that’s the washboard, potholed, washed-out driveway we get called to fix.
We build new driveways, rebuild failing ones, and do the annual regrade-and-crown that keeps a camp road drivable through mud season.
New gravel driveways typically run $15–$30 per linear foot built right (base + surface + crowning); regrading and topping an existing driveway costs a fraction of that. Culverts and ditching quoted per site. Flat quote after a quick look.
Built properly — compacted bank-run base, crushed gravel surface, crowned — figure $15 to $30 per linear foot for a standard 12-foot-wide driveway, more on steep or soft ground. A cheap spread-and-go driveway costs less up front and every year after.
Water is running down it instead of off it. The fix is shape and drainage: crown the surface, ditch the uphill side, and put a culvert where water crosses. Once water has somewhere to go, the gravel stays where you paid for it.
Yes — washboard and potholes are symptoms of a thin or uncrowned surface. We regrade to pull material back where it belongs, re-crown, and compact. If the base has failed we'll tell you honestly and price a rebuild of just the failed section.
Free site walks, test pits before quotes, flat pricing, and a crew that knows Lakes Region ground.
Tell us where the property is and what you’re trying to do. We’ll walk the site, talk it through, and give you a straight, flat quote.
