"Sheldon" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Sep 25, 4:29?am, "Will" wrote:
I need help calculating potential cost for building a pebble stone
walkway
on the side of an office building. The walkway is made of dirt, and it
is
the only way to get from the main parking lot in back of the building to
the
front entrance. During heavy rains it floods and you end up getting a
lot
of mud on shoes. We had the idea to lay down about 2 inches of pebble
stone, and then set on top of the pebble stone flagstone to use as
stepping
stones. This would hopefully raise the steps high enough to get out of
the
accumulating water.

I had an intern today do a rough volume measurement to calculate the
amount
of pebble stone to buy, and I was surprised by the result. The walkway
is
about 160 feet long, and varies between 3 feet and 8 feet wide, probably
averaging about five feet. If we lay down under two inches of pebble
stone, we calculated that we would need about 223 cubic feet of material,
which we calculated based on weight and volume of the pebblestone to be
about 13K pounds of stone, a little over six metric tons.

That strikes me as a lot of stone. Does this sound ballpark correct
for
the amount of space described here? This assumed we pretty much
covered
all of the walkway space with pebble stone that is about two inches deep.
After seeing the amount of stone here, I'm ready for Plan B, which might
be
something like building a very narrow strip of pebble stone. I just
worry
about that dispersing over time.

What kind of contractor would be good at designing something like this?
The gardeners seem to have fairly random ideas about it. Is there
something equivalent to an "interior decorator" for outside garden areas?
What should I be searching for in yellow pages?

I don't think you want a pebble and flagstone walk 150 feet long for a
commercial building... the cost of that stone is peanuts... just make
certain your liability insurance coverage is into the many, many
million$.

So the issue is the pebble is too unsecure if someone falls of the flagstone
step in rain, or would you object to flagstone itself, even if it were
secured in a firm concrete or sand base?

Thanks for raising the liability issue. I'm trying to run a fine line
between cheap/ugly and expensive/nice-looking. Now I have to worry about a
third dimension of safety. But you are right it needs to be part of the
evaluation criteria.

--
Will