What is the difference between crushed stone and Natural Pea Gravel?

Crushed stone is quarried limestone broken to a sharp, angular shape, and it locks together when it is compacted. Natural Pea Gravel is 3/8 inch rounded stone, washed out of river valleys. It does not lock up, so it suits walkways, play areas and patio bedding rather than a drive base.

Should I order material by the ton or by the yard?

Both work. Bulk aggregate is sold by the ton or by the yard, and you choose the unit when you order online. Each product page has a calculator, and picking the unit you already work in keeps the order simple from there.

Which stone is best for drainage in Franklin County?

Clean rock is the washed, open graded choice for subdrains, pipe bedding and backfill behind retaining walls, because water passes straight through it. For tighter work, 3/8 inch crushed stone handles fine drainage and paver joints. Both suit the wet, tiled ground across this part of the Des Moines Lobe.

Franklin County Landscape Rock and Gravel, IA

Iowa Rock Supply handles gravel, stone and aggregate delivery in Franklin County, IA. If you are building or repairing a drive, a lane or a shed pad here, the material you want is Class A roadstone.

That is the 3/4 inch crushed limestone base course, with the fines left in so it binds and compacts.

Delivery across Franklin County

You order online, choose a quantity by the ton or by the yard, and pick a delivery date at checkout. Each product page has a calculator if you want help sizing the load.

A dump truck then tips your material on site as one pile. Delivery covers Hampton, Sheffield, Latimer, Alexander, Geneva, Chapin and Popejoy, along with the surrounding township roads.

Materials delivered in Franklin County

Class A roadstone is the standard Iowa base course. It goes down under driveways, parking pads, shed bases and farm lanes, and it is written as Class A roadstone in county and city entrance standards.

The coarser grade is 1 inch roadstone, which carries heavy equipment and goes under a finer surface course. Washed material is sold here as clean rock, and it moves water rather than holding it.

Ground conditions across Franklin County

This county sits on the Des Moines Lobe, the youngest glacial ground in Iowa. The soil is thick, compact pebbly loam till of the Dows Formation, with sand and gravel along old meltwater channels.

It is also pothole country. The drainage network is young and inefficient, kettles and closed depressions hold water, and most of the ground only drains because it is tiled.

That matters for a base course. Where the ground below stays wet, clean rock gives water somewhere to go.

Compaction waits for the frost to come out and for flat ground to shed its spring water.

Base and paver work runs from late spring to the fall freeze, and a wet spring shortens that window. Winters here are long and cold, and repeated freeze-thaw heaves gravel drives, lanes and field entrances as the ground lets go in spring.

Choosing the right material

Floyd County, Butler County and Grundy County all sit on the Iowan Surface, which is loamy glacial till planed down by cold-climate erosion. That ground is not the same as the Des Moines Lobe till under Franklin County.

Iowan Surface ground carries a thin, patchy loess cover and a pebble band near the surface, with large granite and quartzite erratics in the fields. Limestone bedrock is shallow along the eastern edge of that region.

On ground like that, a base course can meet rock close to the surface, and drainage has fewer places to go. Clean rock and open graded stone matter more where water has nowhere to sit.

On Franklin County till, the working season and the spring thaw drive the schedule more than the slope does. Erosion here is mostly ditch and tile outlet scour, plus bank cutting where runoff concentrates on the moraine ridges.

Order roadstone and washed stone in Franklin County

Iowa Rock Supply delivers Class A roadstone and the rest of your aggregate order across Franklin County, from Hampton and Sheffield to Latimer, Alexander, Geneva, Chapin and Popejoy. Order online, size the load by the ton or the yard, and pick your delivery date at checkout.

Bulk Aggregate Delivery Across Franklin County, IA