D-1 Base Course, Gravel and Stone Delivered Across Alaska

Alaska Rock Supply handles bulk gravel and aggregate delivery across Alaska, and the order starts with the calculator on each product page. From there you pick the material.

Ground here is glacial almost everywhere, but it does not behave the same way twice. Around Cook Inlet, outwash sand and gravel sits over marine silty clay that will not take water.

Materials Delivered Across Alaska

Lead with the job, then pick the material that fits it. A drive, a patio, a drain and a garden bed each want something different out of the same yard.

D-1 base course carries the most weight in Alaska because it is the graded layer the state writes into its own specifications. Subsection 703-2.03 of the Standard Specifications for Highway Construction sets Table 703-2, which gives two base course gradings, C-1 and D-1.

C-1 is the coarser of the two and goes in where a deeper structural layer is wanted.

That same subsection sets a degradation value of 45 minimum, 70 percent fractured faces minimum, and a plasticity index of 6 maximum for C-1 and 10 maximum for D-1. These are the numbers the grading is written around.

Crushed aggregate also sells by inch size here, which is how buyers ask for it. 3/8" Crushed Stone beds pavers and tops a walkway.

Stone Screenings pack a path and fill paver joints.

For drainage, Drain Rock is clean washed stone with the fines taken out, so water moves through it instead of sitting.

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Sand splits by fineness. Screened Sand beds pipe and flatwork, and the specifications call a sand layer over subgrade a sand blanket at Subsection 703-2.12.

Mason Sand is the finest washed sand and goes into mortar and block work.

Fill and soil answer a different question. Fill Dirt raises low ground and compacts rather than settling, so it belongs under a base course and not under a lawn.

Top Soil is the growing layer, and Section 620 of the specifications covers its placement. Garden Soil is a blended planting soil for raised beds and vegetable gardens.

Ground and Climate Across Alaska

Soil changes by region, and so does what it does to an under-built base. Southcentral runs coarse outwash sand and gravel over the Bootlegger Cove Formation, interbedded silty clay and fine sand laid down in a glacial marine setting, with glacial till below.

The Interior is wind laid silt over ice rich ground. The Tanana flood plain is silt, sand and fine gravel at least 400 feet thick near Fairbanks, and the uplands carry loess over permafrost that settles when it is disturbed.

Southeast is thin acid soils over bedrock, broken up by deep peat. Muskeg covers more than a tenth of the panhandle, and the best drained ground sits on alluvial fans and scree slopes rather than on the flats.

Snowmelt arrives all at once at breakup, onto ground that is often still frozen or sitting on something that will not take water. That is marine clay around Cook Inlet, permafrost through the Interior, and bedrock and saturated peat in the Southeast.

Erosion follows the same season. Spring breakup on the rivers, coastal and bank erosion, and thaw settlement where ice rich ground is disturbed.

Frost varies more inside Alaska than most states vary at all. Anchorage publishes 42 inches for a warm foundation and 60 inches for a cold one in its local amendments to the residential code; outside the municipality the local building official sets footing depth.

No single statewide figure applies. The Interior freezes deep and holds, and on ice rich ground the governing question is keeping the ground frozen rather than founding below a frost line.

The Southeast panhandle barely freezes at sea level, where water rather than frost governs.

The working season has a hard edge at both ends. Base and hardscape work runs from breakup to freeze-up, and frozen or thawing ground will not compact.

Where We Deliver in Alaska

Alaska Rock Supply delivers across the state. That covers Anchorage Municipality, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Fairbanks North Star Borough and Kenai Peninsula Borough.

It also covers Juneau City and Borough, Ketchikan Gateway Borough and Sitka City and Borough in the Southeast, plus Kodiak Island Borough.

West and north, deliveries reach Bethel Census Area and Kusilvak Census Area, Nome Census Area, and the North Slope Borough.

How to Order and Size a Load

Ordering runs online. You choose a material, choose a quantity by the ton or by the yard, and pick a delivery date at checkout.

Each product page has a calculator for sizing the load. A dump truck then tips the material on site in one pile.

Order D-1 Base Course and More Across Alaska

D-1 base course is the material Alaska ground asks for first, and it sits alongside washed stone, sand, fill and soil in the catalogue. Size your load with the calculator on the product page, choose your quantity, and pick a delivery date at checkout.

Place your order online and Alaska Rock Supply brings it to your site.