It’s hard to believe, but Justine and I bought our property on Galiano almost 7 years ago (this June). As most of you know, we’re on a private road (Panorama Lane), which was built 12-15 years ago. During that time, there has been no maintenance done to it, and it has suffered pretty badly. Last year, I tried to organize the rest of the owners to rebuild the lane, but we could not get agreement on the approach before the building season ended.
This winter, I started again and this time everyone was in agreement. We contracted one of the local excavating companies and they came up with a great plan to regrade and rebuild the gravel road back to a good state. I was on Galiano last week to make myself available to the crew as they worked on our project. It turned out really well, so I thought I’d share some details.
I also created a shared photo library, for anyone that wants the photos.
The Before Times…
As mentioned, the road was roughly 15 years old and had not really been maintained. Various people had tried to do the odd pothole patching in recent years, but the reality was that so much of the road surface has been washed away, that there wasn’t a lot left. Last year, and even more so this year, the pot holes have gotten huge and the road was getting close to being un-drivable. Here’s some photos from before the construction.
Construction Week
The project was expected to take a week and the gravel for the lane was being delivered twice a day, all week long. THe first load arrived Monday morning and the crew not long afterwards. They started with filling the worst of the pot holes, to give it a chance to settle and for people to drive over it and pack it down over the week. There were two people on site, and they did a great job for us. Some pictures from earlier in the week.
The first deliver of gravel for the road repair.
Moving gravel into the truck to spread over the lane.
The first stage was filling potholes.
For the construction, they started the process at the Vineyard Way end of the Lane and worked their way along towards our end. This meant that they drove back and forth over the new surface, compacting it and improving the new surface. The weather was generally pretty good - it rained a bit during the week, but we also had some great sunny days. So that part worked out well for us. Some more photos from the work in progress during the week.
The work progressed over the course of the week. We received a total of 10 loads of gravel and the guys packed in into the road bed, building up the base and recreating a proper gravel road. Coming in and out over the course of the week, you could really see the progress that the crew was making.
On Sunday, Justine and I walked the Lane to give it a final inspection. It looked really good! We also installed some speed limit signs to reinforce the need for the residents to keep the speed down to improve the longevity of the new road. Hopefully we’ll get a good 10-15 years out of it.
