How deep should a gravel driveway base be dug in New Brunswick?

How Deep to Dig a Gravel Driveway Base in New Brunswick

We found no New Brunswick standard that sets an excavation depth for a residential gravel driveway, so the depth is a site judgement. What drives it is the condition of the ground under your wheels, and that has to be assessed on the lot itself.

Ask the contractor what they found under the topsoil and how deep they plan to go, and get that in writing with the quote.

On the material side, published price guides read in September 2026 show crushed stone at $40 to $75 per cubic metre and Granular A at $35 to $55 per cubic metre, with delivery running $75 to $200 per load. Driveway excavation and base work as a whole runs $1,500 to $5,000, and gravel for a single-car driveway $400 to $1,200, based on the same guides. Few New Brunswick prices are published separately, so machine time is the best-anchored figure: a mini excavator with operator runs $65 to $150 per hour, and a standard machine with operator $150 to $250 per hour.

Before any machine touches the ground, two separate locate requests are needed. Info-Excavation, reached through Click Before You Dig, requires three working days' notice; that locate is valid until the end date written on the request. NB Power runs its own underground locate service, separate from Info-Excavation, and asks for at least five business days' notice; that locate is valid for 60 days from the date on the form and covers only NB Power-owned lines. Any private lines, such as wiring run to a garage or shed by a past owner, are yours to find and mark before the contractor arrives. If the driveway connects to a municipal street, check with your municipality about a curb cut or culvert permit before work starts; Moncton and Fredericton publish curb cut fees, Saint John has a driveway culvert permit, and other towns may have their own rules.

If the driveway runs within 30 metres of a watercourse or wetland, a Watercourse and Wetland Alteration permit from the province is required before any clearing, grading or machine work begins. That 30 metres is measured horizontally from the top of the bank on the ground, not from a map.

Ask the contractor to show you both locate tickets before the machine starts, and ask them to explain in writing how they plan to handle the subgrade if they find soft or wet material below the topsoil, since that is where unexpected cost can come in. The form on this page reaches excavation contractors in the New Brunswick Construction Network directory.