New gravel driveways built with a real base, and tired ones regraded, crowned, and drained — so a New Hampton driveway survives mud season and the next big storm instead of washing down the hill.
Most New Hampton projects start with a wooded parcel and a vision, and the ground varies more than newcomers expect. Down near the Pemigewasset, river-terrace sands dig easily and drain beautifully — some of the friendliest excavation soil in the region. Climb into the hills east of the highway and it turns to hardpan till with boulders, slower digging and slower draining, where a perimeter drain around the foundation stops being optional. Full-lot development is our standard package here: cut the drive first so everything else has access, clear and grub the house site, dig the foundation, trench utilities, and rough-grade for drainage in one coordinated sequence — cheaper than piecemeal mobilizations. The I-93 interchange keeps trucking costs down, a real advantage when a job needs serious gravel. Mud season posts some town roads in March and April, so big material moves happen on firm ground, summer through freeze-up.
Developing a wooded New Hampton lot? Build the driveway to its full base depth first, before the foundation dig — not as a finishing touch. Every truck your project needs will use it for a year, and a properly built drive used as a construction road just needs a top course at the end.
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.
