construction folks--what is construction lime used for?

greybeard

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Copperas Cove Tx
I was at McCoys builders today and saw pallets and pallets of bagged 'construction lime". The warehouse guy said "builders use it to stabilize gummy sticky clay" but didn't know any more about it. What's the deal on it? How do you use it and what's the end result?
(looking for something to put on the clay road that leads up to my driveway so it isn't slick as owl snot)
 
I'm not 100% if its the same stuff or not but when building the base for parking lots with a soft base there's a product that looks like lime that gets tilled into the clay and fill dirt and then gets ran over by a compactor. Once its done the base hardens like concrete and then blacktop over it. This process is used in my area when dealing with low wet areas that really doesn't have solid ground.
 
Rla442 is correct. Lime is used to mix in the base soils to "dry" it and allow you to better compact. Depending what's being built on top of the soil, the soil density is engineered to certain specs.
 
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In one of my grandpa's feedyards when it started staying wet and muddy too much they hauled in several semi loads of it and it helped a quite a bit. Made parts of it hard as cement.
 
Graybeard. It needs to be incorporated into the soil. Just putting it on top of the road will make it even slicker.
 
It's used around here occasionally as well, Code L, is what I've heard it called by contractors. Just like rla442 mentioned.

It will dry your soil out some by just being physically drier itself, but with the added benefit of having a chemical reaction when it contacts wet surfaces (soil), to which it will start getting warm and setting up also. It's a very useful product when it is appropriate to use it.
 

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