Which stone is best for drainage in Spokane County?

Use a washed, fines-free stone. Drain Rock, also called 7/8 clean, is the standard choice for footing drains, French drains and infiltration trenches, because the voids stay open where a perched water table sits on till. A minus product compacts instead, so keep it out of a drain.

What do I need to have ready for a bulk delivery?

Have the drop spot clear and reachable by a dump truck, and know roughly how much you want. Order online, choose a quantity by the ton or by the yard, and pick a delivery date at checkout. The truck tips the load in one pile, so decide where that pile should sit before it arrives. Each product page has a calculator if you want to size the load first.

What is the best base material for a patio in Spokane County?

1 1/4 Minus is the structural course, placed below a 5/8 minus top course. The larger top size and fewer fines carry load and stay workable on soft wet ground, which matters on this county's flood gravel and on loess that holds water. Bed the pavers themselves on Stone Screenings or Washed Sand, and sweep the joints with Mason Sand.

Gravel, Soil and Stone for Spokane County, WA

Washington Rock Supply brings gravel, stone and aggregate delivery in Spokane County, WA to your site. The local default surfacing course is 5/8 minus, the crushed rock with the fines left in, so it packs hard and sheds water instead of soaking it up.

Spokane County spans two very different ground regions. Around Spokane, Cheney, Liberty Lake and Airway Heights the valley sits on Ice Age flood gravel and sand.

Out past Fairfield, Rockford, Spangle and Latah the ground is deep windblown loess, fine and easily worked, and it moves easily too.

Delivery across Spokane County

You order online. Pick your material, choose a quantity by the ton or by the yard, and set a delivery date at checkout.

Each product page has a calculator if you want to size the load before you commit.

A dump truck tips the load in one pile at your address. That is the whole of it, so plan where you want that pile to land before the truck arrives.

Bulk delivery reaches Spokane, Cheney, Liberty Lake, Airway Heights, Mead, Medical Lake, Deer Park, Fairfield, Rockford, Spangle, Latah, Chattaroy, Colbert and Elk.

Materials delivered in Spokane County

Start with the job in front of you. A driveway, a patio base and a footing drain each want a different stone, and the minus and clean split is the thing to get right.

5/8 minus carries the most weight in this county. That section sets two gradings: base course with a 1 1/4 inch top size, and top course with a 5/8 inch top size.

Contractors and quarries shorten those to CSBC and CSTC and order them as 1 1/4 minus and 5/8 minus.

For a long rural drive, Driveway Gravel is sold as a blend alongside those graded courses. For a patio, Washed Sand beds the pavers and Mason Sand sweeps the joints.

For beds and tree rings, Shredded Mulch is the landscape bark Washington yards list as beauty bark.

Ground conditions across Spokane County

Around Spokane, Cheney, Liberty Lake and Airway Heights the valley gravel is open enough that water moves through the aquifer below it at up to 60 feet a day. Infiltration is easy, and the aquifer has carried a federal sole source designation since 1978.

Compacted fill and shallow basalt shelves are where the wet spots show up.

Out past Fairfield, Rockford, Spangle and Latah the problem is the opposite. When the top inch of loess thaws over frozen soil below, rain and snowmelt run across the surface instead of soaking in, and every slope becomes a drainage path.

Anything built on a slope there needs runoff routed before it starts cutting.

Erosion follows the same split. On the hills around Spokane, runoff cuts the loess and gullies the draws and road ditches during the spring thaw.

On the long cultivated Palouse slopes, sheet and rill erosion of loess is driven by rain falling on frozen soil, and about 40 percent of the original Palouse topsoil has been lost since farming began.

Eastern Washington's wet weather season for erosion control runs October 1 through June 30. The working season is long and dry through the summer and closes when the ground freezes.

Spokane sets its footing depth well below the western Washington figure for that reason: 24 inches, the frost line depth in the Spokane Municipal Code design criteria.

Choosing the right material

Stevens County shares part of this county's ground region, the Spokane and the Selkirk foothills, so the base and drainage choices there run on the same flood gravel and loess.

Whitman County sits on the Palouse ground region, the same deep windblown loess that covers the Fairfield, Rockford, Spangle and Latah side of this county, so the ground itself is the same.

Pend Oreille County is the real contrast. It is glaciated mountain country, with thin stony soil over granite, gneiss and metamorphic rock on the ridges, and till, outwash gravel and lake silt filling the valleys.

Thin soil over bedrock changes the drainage choice: a clean washed stone such as Drain Rock or #57 Stone keeps its voids where a minus product would smear and hold water.

On this county's own flood gravel, a compacting course such as 5/8 minus or 1 1/4 minus is the base for drives and pads. Where water perches on till or a shallow basalt shelf, switch to a washed stone so it drains instead of holding.

Order 5/8 Minus and More in Spokane County

5/8 minus is the Washington default surfacing course, and it is the material to start with for a drive, a parking pad or a slab in Spokane County. Order online, size your load by the ton or yard, and pick your delivery date at checkout.

Washington Rock Supply delivers gravel, stone, sand, topsoil and fill across the county, and a dump truck tips it on site.

5/8 Minus, Sand and Gravel Delivery in Spokane County, WA