I live in University City. Does anyone know of a place nearby that sells decomposed granite?

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Before deciding on decomposed granite as a paving surface, consider some of the drawbacks. If you have hardwood floors, you will want to leave your shoes at the door because decomposed granite acts like sandpaper, especially in wet weather. When kept constantly wet or if puddling occurs, decomposed granite can turn to soup, and paths on hillsides are prone to erosion.

Other than these situations, decomposed granite is a suitable surface. Decomposed granite is available in gray, red and gold and can be purchased from landscape materials suppliers. Look under the heading "topsoil" in the Yellow Pages. Or there are quite a few places just the otherside of the BF Bridge toward Cherry Hill or just past the Cherry hill mall. I suggest renting a PCS pickup truck. Delivery rates 'over the bridge' can instantly add $200 to the delivery charge. And the saving you get are great. I costed out pea gravel at $34 a ton.

Decomposed granite is not hard to install, but there is a trick to installing it properly for a solid, lasting surface. You must know some basic carpentry skills and have access to water, a masonary level and a roller or compactor. Your best bet for the heavy tools is home depot. (Be happy to sell you my masonary level cheap.)

First, lay out the location of your path. To contain the decomposed granite, you must install header boards along the edge of your pathway. I recommend that the lumber for the header be no less than two inches wide and four inches deep in dimension. Crappy home depot chep stuff lumber as fine just make sure it's pressure treated. This may be in the form of a two-by-fours for straight runs or laminated one-by-four or four-ply bender board for curved runs.

Excavate soil in the layout of the header board to a depth of one inch. This provides for the decomposed granite to be three inches deep for the path surface (one inch of soil, three inches of decomposed granite).

Install your header boards, anchoring them with stakes about every four feet. The header boards will probably be the toughest part of the project. When you've finished with them, give yourself a pat on the back, or better yet a massage. But don't relax too much. You're only halfway through the project.

The next step is to estimate how much decomposed granite you will need to fill the area between the header boards. To make this easy on yourself, have a calculator available and a pencil and paper. Measure the length and width of your paths and multiply these two numbers together. This will give you the square footage of your paths.

Take the square footage and divide by four. The answer will give you the cubic feet of decomposed granite needed to fill the pathway to a depth of three inches. Materials are not sold by the cubic foot so you will have to divide the cubic feet by 27 to come up with the number of cubic yards of decomposed granite to do the job (27 cubic feet equals one cubic yard).

Decide which color of decomposed granite you would like to use and place your order with the supplier. Colors may vary depending upon where the decomposed granite is quarried, so shop around. I have even found changes from sites just a few blocks away. There is one on 70 and one on 83 within a mile of each other. Price doesn't change but the material does.

The next step is filling the area between the header boards with the decomposed granite. This is where the most common mistake is made. The decomposed granite must be installed in thin layers, moistening and compacting each layer. If applied all in one layer, the entire profile of the decomposed granite does not compact, and once the upper crust cracks, you have a sand box. Apply a layer of decomposed granite 1 1/2 inch thick and thoroughly soak the material with water. Allow the moist decomposed granite to sit for about eight hours and then compact it with a heavy roller or a vibrating plate compactor.

Apply another 1 1/2-inch-thick layer of decomposed granite and soak it thoroughly with water. Wait about eight hours and compact again. Since the material is compressed thinner than the one-and-one-half inch layers applied, a third layer usually needs to be applied to make the path flush with the top of the header board.

It's great for a track surface. It's also become quite popular from the looks. But you will have to do surface repairs about once a year as you get settling and wear.

It is not a a low maintenance project.


cite: google. Note, some parts are copied from other information found on the web (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly....GARDQA08.html) that I found germain to the question. I went through the information, edited it for correctness and content, added my own experiance, information and comments. 43% of the pragraphs are unchanged. Excuse me for forwarding correct information that the person might find usefull.

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Peace Out, Philly!

Decomposed granite? I call that a fancy name for stone dust.

People leave that as a walking surface?

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If you want to learn about decomposed granite, you might look here: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly....GARDQA08.html

Oh wait, you don't have to. Tenzo copied most of his post from there. Just read his then.

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tenzo says: Don't force your personal opinions on others.

Ain't google a great tool ?

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Peace Out, Philly!

It is. So how about giving proper attribution to the author of your words instead of trying to pass them off as your own? Someone did the hard work of writing about a subject, and like a jizzbucket, you just stole most of it and pretended like you wrote it.

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tenzo says: Don't force your personal opinions on others.

jizzbucket??? wow.

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HEY PHILLYBLOG - SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

There, I put in a cite ya jizznozzel, ya happy now? Excuse me for caring enough to try to get him the right information.

None of the information on that site answered his question so just giving the site location would not have helped.
The information I had from personal experience is what he needed.
Evidently you didn't need a cite because you didn't answer his question and provided nothing useful to him.

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Peace Out, Philly!

Good point, you might try going to the granite places on Washington that cut the stuff and see if you can take it off their hands cheap.

How much do you need?

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Peace Out, Philly!

You might try going to the granite places on Washington that cut the stuff and see if you can take it off their hands cheap.

How much do you need?

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tenzo says: Don't force your personal opinions on others.