Blacktop driveway

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Hi all, My husband wants to blacktop our driveway and I was wondering if any of you know any negative aspects of doing so. Thanks Mary

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), August 31, 2000

Answers

Hi, Mary,

There are lots of negatives:

Cost to install. Cost to maintain. Cost to environment during manufactute. Leaching of pollutants into the soil/groundwater after installation. Heats up the air in summer. Poor traction in winter, if you have snow and/or ice.

There are, obviously, some good points, but you evidently already have heard those.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoffjoe@yahoo.com), August 31, 2000.


May I offer a positive? We just bought a house with a blacktop driveway and for the first time in their lives our kids have had a place to ride their bikes. Now they don't feel as deprived, and our 9 year old doesn't feel like a dork around her friends because she's not the only one that can't ride a bike. Its gets STINKIN hot, like Joe said, but we love it (means the husband can shoot hoops, too).

-- Julie (julieamc@excite.com), August 31, 2000.

I would possibly kill for a asphalt driveway, with the additional money each year to maintain it. But there is an alternative out here in Texas. Crushed concrete. They crush up concrete and sell it by the truck load, once you put this stuff down it packs down and becomes a very hard surface. Our company has done several driveways and foundations for mobile homes with this. It is a wonderful product especially for wet areas, or steep property. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 31, 2000.

Vicki, that sounds like a great option! I love the idea of asphalt but as previously mentioned, it's expensive, etc. Poured concrete is even less of a financial option for us (long drive, plus we just had 158 tons of gravel dropped and spread last year..) While the gravel we have is functionally efficient, I can't tell you what a nuisance all the weeds that grow up in it are! Since we don't use poisons, it's a non-stop war against the weeds.

Can you apply it over existing gravel? Is it common? I would like a little more info if possible before I call our local "gravel guy". Thx.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 31, 2000.


A less expensive alternative to asphalt is what was called "farm to market paving". It consisted of combining gravel and road tar for paving. The major drawback was the tar can seep to the surface in hot weather and be messy.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 31, 2000.


Sheepish, gravel is right up there with me and our horrid red clay driveway and roads! Walking on gravel and when you do drive it just sort of moves out of the places you really need it. The place we get our crushed concrete is a hugh plant that has slabs of concrete, rebar and all piled up to the sky. This big machine pulverizes it into gravel size and smaller pieces, and they come and dump it at your place. Husband said unless your gravel driveway is really deep that he would see no problem with it, since as they grade your road with the tractor, the gravel would mix in with the crushed concrete. What's nice about the crushed concrete is it stays put. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 01, 2000.

I used to help pave for a small outfit, and blacktop is quick and easy, and looks good for a while. But even if you maintain it and "seal" it, you're only protecting it from the upper surface. The grass and weeds will push up from below. Moisture will travel under it, and freeze and thaw and crack it. Trees will send their roots under it and heave it, etc., etc. Plus it's awefully hot in the summer, and ices up real well in the winter.

Personally I'd go with concrete. When our current driveway needs to be replaced (it was here when we bought the place), it's concrete - even if I have to break up the old asphalt and pour the concrete myself in 10 foot sections as I get the money.

If you have a long driveway, consider concrete at the ends by the house and by the road, and put down Quarry Process (or QP or shoulder stone or 1 of the many other names it has). Packs hard, and stays put once it's packed, as long as running water isn't a problem... And makes for a really good base if you want to pave or cement over it at a later time.

-- Eric in TN (ems@nac.net), September 01, 2000.


sheepish i agree with not using chemicals such as round-up etc. to controll weeds in a driveway. i was wondering what you think about using a propane torch to burn the weeds. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), September 02, 2000.

On gravel, it makes a difference if you ask for screened or with fines (gravel dust). If the gravel includes the fines it will pack harder.

-- Ken S. in TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 02, 2000.

in kans. that would raise your taxes sky high. Bob in s.e.ks.

-- Bob Condry (bobco@hit.net), September 02, 2000.


Sheepish, I don't understand - how do weeds grow where you drive? Here, there are only very low weeds between where you tires travel, and if a person makes the effort to drive way over to the right side, so that the left wheels of the car or truck drive down the center of the road, there are no weeds there, at all. Assuming the drive is wide enough to do this, that is.

This method is also useful to keep the drive from getting a crown in the center.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoffjoe@yahoo.com), September 02, 2000.


Eric, I have been thinking of doing our driveway in concrete ourselves but we have never done driveway cement work, only footings and concrete walls. Can you tell me how thick the concrete has to be and what mixture should be used. Also, since we have a motorhome which breaks up the alphalt, I suspect that our cement will have to be a little harder/thicker than normal driveways so any advice on that would help too.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), September 03, 2000.

Joe, there is a big difference in climates between Southern Oregon and Western Washington. Up here, if you don't pour concrete you are growing a forest.

I have a concrete driveway that I weed twice a year. Fortunatly, that is the only maintainence I have to do to it. The driveway is sixty years old with a spalled surface and no cracks. If you are planning in staying in your home for the next century, concrete would be a very good investment, even if poured in sections at a time when finances permit.

I used to work for a road department. Asphalt is easy to install, but expensive in time and materials to maintain and guaranteed to fail within time. Can you afford to resurface?

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), September 05, 2000.


Hi y'all. Guess I've been so busy with my nose in another post I forgot to check in back here. Yes, we did get fines with our gravel, and it has helped some. We actually had a very nice job done and haven't had any problems with the gravel shifting. Our road to the barns is bigger stuff and any fines there have long since disappeared, into the pit run underneath.

We have a lot of dandylions, plantains, and misc. weeds that just show up from nowhere (hell?). I hadn't thought about burning them out, gail! Maybe that would work...I would wait 'til it gets a little wetter out though (my dad used to have a flame thrower that he would use to nuke our blackberries, when we had a place at the beach...talk about invasive! Think that would do it?? LOL). I have tried the vinegar trick, but it doesn't last long, and new weeds show up.

We did put in a truckload of concrete this year, too. This was for walkways and a pad under our "pavillion". It was a lot of work, and expensive, but other than hosing off the goose, duck, and chicken "products" occasionally, it's really the best solution. Someday, I'll have the concrete drive. Oh yeah, the white horse fence, the boxes of topiary, etc.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), September 05, 2000.


Colleen, I would pour it at least 4" thick with wire reinforcing. And if I could afford it, I'd get the fibers added to the mix (the name slips me right now).

-- Eric in TN (ems@nac.net), September 05, 2000.


If you are in Maine, as we are, an asphalt or concrete driveway is a wonderful thing. No gravel, stonedust, crushed rock, or 'natural" driveway can be plowed (I'm talking several feet, collectively, of snow) without some of it winding up in a pile in the spring. I empathize with not harming the environment, but with the millions of miles of paved roads, I really don't believe your driveway will hasten the demise of civilization! GL!

-- Brad (Homefixer@SacoRiver.net), September 05, 2000.

Eric, one other question I had. How big of a square should be poured in order to allow for expansion joints and how much of a split does there have to be between each section for expansion? Or is that necessary? Thanks.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), September 06, 2000.

Colleen, that I really don't know - I've seen driveways that had sections as small as 4 feet, and others that had sections that had to be every inch of 30 feet. I've also seen several driveways that are nothing more than 2 rows of 2 foot square pads where the wheels travel, with grass in between the 2 rows.

I need to find a mason and pick his brain yet...

-- Eric in TN (ems@nac.net), September 06, 2000.


Mary I am not sure were you live, but a concrete driveway that is put in properly will be far superior to blacktop and will cost less in the long run. A blacktop driveway requires a lot of upkeep.

-- Bruce Meyer (meyerbb@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

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