Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I purchased this property in 2015 and in spring 2016 I bought a Dr Power Grader and this ATV brand new to maintain the driveway at a cost of about $16k give or take. The driveway is a mile long, has 2 large hills, doesn't really have the greatest drainage, and has been the biggest PITA from day 1 to maintain all the washouts and ruts created from heavy rains that just seems to get worse every year. It's not too bad to maintain "after torrential spring rains end" for the year (or if it's 2025, I don't think the rains are ever going to end) and through fall. But over winter that constant thawing and freezing really destroys the driveway and there isn't much you can do with it until everything thaws out and "torrential rains end sometime after spring .... if they ever end".
Through necessity, to keep it operational, I've had to do a lot of mods to the Dr power grader. Initially the actuator that controls the blade height went out within the first 12 months, it got replaced with a new actuator under warranty and that is also when I modded it to work with a hard wired winch switch plus relay setup on my ATV instead of the remote key fob which was cumbersome to operate on a rough driveway and was constantly getting dropped and lost when used. Then the replacement actuator went out within 12 months too and it was no longer under warranty and if 2 couldn't last 1 year each, I wasn't paying my money to replace it with a third one at almost $400. So I came up with using a chain boomer and it's worked great for 8 years. I think in the 3rd year the plastic concrete weight bin finally broke off and every year for the last few I've been saying it's on its last legs but always hope it will make it through one more season
This is probably my most used tool on the homestead (combined with the ATV), by hours. The first time I grade the driveway each spring to fix the previous winters freeze/thaw cycle takes the longest at 3-5 full days so estimated 35-60 hours. Then I usually have to touch the driveway up on the bigger hills every time we get a heavy rain and the driveway washes out at 2-3 hours per storm. This year has been the wettest I can recall and it's July and I haven't even been able to complete the initial driveway maintenance because all it does is rains.
To be fair, a tractor and box blade would do a quicker job but I can't justify their cost because the only time I'd be using them is to maintain the driveway.
Mods parts list:
hard wired switch amzn.to/4lkWOMY
hard wired relay amzn.to/3IhryQc
chain boomer amzn.to/3U7RAYJ
weight plate amzn.to/4lMmKRn
weight mount base amzn.to/4nVxor5
weight mount pipe amzn.to/40Jk5zH
weight mount screws amzn.to/3GtH7E4
I purchased this property in 2015 and in spring 2016 I bought a Dr Power Grader and this ATV brand new to maintain the driveway at a cost of about $16k give or take. The driveway is a mile long, has 2 large hills, doesn't really have the greatest drainage, and has been the biggest PITA from day 1 to maintain all the washouts and ruts created from heavy rains that just seems to get worse every year. It's not too bad to maintain "after torrential spring rains end" for the year (or if it's 2025, I don't think the rains are ever going to end) and through fall. But over winter that constant thawing and freezing really destroys the driveway and there isn't much you can do with it until everything thaws out and "torrential rains end sometime after spring .... if they ever end".
Through necessity, to keep it operational, I've had to do a lot of mods to the Dr power grader. Initially the actuator that controls the blade height went out within the first 12 months, it got replaced with a new actuator under warranty and that is also when I modded it to work with a hard wired winch switch plus relay setup on my ATV instead of the remote key fob which was cumbersome to operate on a rough driveway and was constantly getting dropped and lost when used. Then the replacement actuator went out within 12 months too and it was no longer under warranty and if 2 couldn't last 1 year each, I wasn't paying my money to replace it with a third one at almost $400. So I came up with using a chain boomer and it's worked great for 8 years. I think in the 3rd year the plastic concrete weight bin finally broke off and every year for the last few I've been saying it's on its last legs but always hope it will make it through one more season
This is probably my most used tool on the homestead (combined with the ATV), by hours. The first time I grade the driveway each spring to fix the previous winters freeze/thaw cycle takes the longest at 3-5 full days so estimated 35-60 hours. Then I usually have to touch the driveway up on the bigger hills every time we get a heavy rain and the driveway washes out at 2-3 hours per storm. This year has been the wettest I can recall and it's July and I haven't even been able to complete the initial driveway maintenance because all it does is rains.
To be fair, a tractor and box blade would do a quicker job but I can't justify their cost because the only time I'd be using them is to maintain the driveway.
Mods parts list:
hard wired switch amzn.to/4lkWOMY
hard wired relay amzn.to/3IhryQc
chain boomer amzn.to/3U7RAYJ
weight plate amzn.to/4lMmKRn
weight mount base amzn.to/4nVxor5
weight mount pipe amzn.to/40Jk5zH
weight mount screws amzn.to/3GtH7E4
