About Michigan Rock Supply | Ordering Around the Thaw

Most people reach this page holding a tonnage and one question: is this a yard I can drive to with a trailer? It is not. This is an online storefront for bulk aggregate. You pick a material, set a quantity, choose a date and give a delivery ZIP code at checkout, and the load comes to the property by dump truck. There is no counter to lean on and no scale house gate to pull through.

What the model is good at is the part of the job that happens before any truck moves: comparing sizes and gradings side by side at eleven at night, working a yardage out with a calculator instead of over the phone, and getting the order in before the ground is ready rather than after everyone else has queued up for it.

Winter is for the measuring, not the spreading

Nothing compacts over frozen ground, so the cold months are planning months here. That is the right time to walk the lane with a tape, mark the wet stretch that fails every year, and turn the shape into cubic yards and tons with the material calculators. Orders placed with a date already chosen beat orders scrambled together in the first warm week.

The thaw sets the calendar, not the forecast

Frost reaches 42 inches under the Michigan Residential Code, and the building official can require deeper footings where local conditions call for it. When that frost comes back out, the soil underneath a drive is saturated and weak, gravel drives rut, and thin bases heave. Frost laws limit heavy trucks on state highways and many county roads through the thaw, and they lift later in the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula than they do downstate. Base and paver work starts when the ground firms, which is a different week in the Keweenaw than it is on the lake plain in the southeast.

Summer belongs to the jobs that never needed a roller

Once the ground is dry, the orders change character. Beds want Shredded Mulch, new lawns over sandy west-side ground want screened topsoil, and paths and play areas want pea stone or the finer walkway material. None of it depends on compaction, so it fits the stretch of the year when the compaction work is already done.

Fall is the last honest window

Base, driveway and paver work runs from the thaw into late fall, and that season is shorter north of the bridge. Late loads of 21AA limestone are usually about getting a drive or a pad shaped before winter finds the soft spots. After the ground firms up, the material can still be delivered, but it cannot be properly compacted, and a layer left loose through a freeze is a layer you will be dragging back into line in April.

Why the catalogue says 21AA and 22A

Aggregate here is specified by MDOT Section 902 class designations. Class 21AA is the dense-graded crushed aggregate that goes under drives and pads; class 22A is a separate dense-graded class, sold here as 22A road gravel, used on unpaved drives and roads and as base. They are separate classes, not two names for one product. The catalogue uses those designations because that is how material is specified locally, not as any kind of certification this storefront holds, and the size and grading on each product page is what you should match a spec against.

What this storefront can settle, and what it cannot

It can show you grading, size and weight per cubic yard, convert a shape into tons, take a date and a ZIP code, and put a pile where you mark it. It cannot look at your subgrade, and it will not pretend a published depth exists where one does not. Depth over soaked clay in the Thumb and depth over sandy outwash near the lake are different decisions, and they stay yours. If a job is on the edge of one of those calls, send the measurements through the contact form rather than guessing at a product page. The full catalogue is where the sizes and weights live, and how a delivery is set up covers what the truck needs at the other end.

Common questions

Can I hook a trailer up and haul a couple of tons away myself?

No. Everything sold here is delivered by dump truck to the address you give at checkout. That is why the ZIP code field matters and why the drop spot needs a clear route: the load is going to be tipped where you mark it, not loaded into your trailer at a gate.

Do you sell to contractors and landscapers, or only to homeowners?

Both. Bulk aggregate here goes to homeowners, landscapers and contractors, and the work ranges from a single cottage turnaround up to commercial construction. The ordering route is the same either way, so a contractor buying for a client site sets the quantity, the date and the delivery ZIP code the same way a homeowner would.

Can I order in late fall for a drive I will not finish until spring?

You can have material delivered while the ground is still workable, but plan where it will sit. A pile left through winter is fine as a pile; what you cannot do is compact a layer over frozen ground and expect it to hold. If the job is a drive base, most people are better off measuring over winter and taking delivery once the thaw has passed and the subgrade has firmed.

How do I know which product matches the spec my builder gave me?

Match it on size and grading, not on the name. Each product page lists the top size, the grading and the type, and MDOT class designations are used here as the local way material is described. If your builder wrote a class on a drawing, compare that against the listed size and grading, and ask before ordering where the two do not line up.

About Michigan Rock Supply and the Michigan Working Year