Tear out or just pave over asphalt driveway?

[Nate Nagel]

I knew it was there - the previous owners of the house were, oddly pertinent to this thread, very environmentally conscious and also particularly concerned with water management. Apparently they knew someone who had a tree service and invited him to come and blow wood chips on the property; seems that the fresh stuff went on the driveway and when it was nicely composted it got thrown into the yard and more was laid down. They had the place for appx. 18 years... so my yard is a good six inches higher than my neighbors' (but nice soil!) and I've screened, shoveled, and given away more compost/soil to garden-oriented friends than I care to remember in an effort to a) clean off the driveway and b) properly grade around the house and garage.

I pretty much knew where the driveway was, because there was a road out front and a garage in back, so I figured there had to be a driveway connecting the two :)

I'm not quite enough of an eco-weenie to be willing to park my cars on dirt, but do appreciate the concerns enough to be willing to try permeable pavement if the cost penalty isn't too great.

nate

[aemeijers]

Hope you had a lot of foundation showing above the grade/mulch line. Perfect recipe for termite infestation and hidden ponding against foundation. When I was house-shopping a few years ago, I had to pass on a couple of otherwise-interesting places because the idiots had graded higher than the siding. Real estate agent had the gall to act surprised when I pointed out the obvious water infiltration on the inside of the wall in those spots.

[hrhofmann]

de quoted text -

So what do you think about 2-3 inches of new asphalt on top of a well- settled base???, that's back to my original question.

[clare]

If water got in between you and your bed and froze, you'd be out of there pretty quick too. If the top layer does not bond to the bottom, water gets between and freezes (at least up here) and then you KNOW it was 2 layers. Happens on the highways a lot if the crews don't get the cracks sealed up tight well before freeze-up.

[mm]

Very good, Watson.

[mm]

This may well be true sometimes, but in the case Cindy brought, she'd lived there for 10 years and the top layer was an unknown time longer than that. If what you talk about had happened, she would have already known that there were two layers, right?

Perhaps you are using bonded differently from how she used it.

[N8N]

The house is of masonry construction (block with brick facing) up to the floor of the 2nd level, and it passed a pre-purchase termite inspection, so no worries, although I do understand your concerns. There's some evidence of water having gotten into the basement in the past, but it seems mostly due to a combination of clogged gutters, a poorly installed basement window, and lack of flashing on the ledger board of the deck behind the house. I have corrected the grading in all but a small area since purchasing the house.

The only "infestation" that I had any issues with was with ants somehow going up the kitchen wall and coming in behind the trim of one window and from there to the kitchen counter, but after the application of some acrylic caulk around the trim I haven't seen them back.

nate

[N8N]

Hey, sometimes the obvious answer is the right one :)

nate

[hallerb]

Saw a tv show where the owners laid a astroturf product that looked like grass and had holes in it that grass grew thru put over their front lawn for parking. looked nice, since the home had no on site parking.

how this held up over time? who knows?

[willshak]

quoted text -

Call some pavers and get estimates. As long as a pave over will not affect drainage (to the road or to the garage), I'd go with it. Ripping up the old driveway and starting over will also start the settling process all over again. Besides, it's cheaper.

[TimR]

de quoted text -

I just watched a permeable concrete install job last week in the Tri- Cities Virginia area.

It was interesting. It's basically concrete without sand, just aggregate. It won't pour, it takes a lot of hand labor to get spread, so I'm guessing it may be fairly expensive. Not a DIY job at all, you have to spread it and compact it fast so you need a big crew. They used a big powered roller to surface it.

For a business that has to meet stormwater regulations it is probably cost effective because you can avoid big detention pond structures. For a homeowner I'm inclined to doubt it though I didn't ask the cost per area. I'm just judging by the size of the crew I saw working, and working hard!

If you're interested I'll find the name of the supplier.

[N8N]

I've also seen waffle-pattern concrete pavers that accomplish teh same thing, but I personally don't want to do that being a person of old cars and many tools; they'd work fine if you just want a driveway to drive on, but they don't seem to be jackstand or creeper friendly.

nate

[Cindy Hamilton]

No, we're using it the same way. Gravity was doing a fair job of holding the top layer down until we hit it with a power washer. I'm pretty sure that if we started power washing between you and your bed, you'd rise up, too.

It's the difference between having a problem and knowing about it, and having a problem and not knowing about it. Oh, we knew some areas had trouble, but it wasn't "in our faces". The thing is still eminently drivable, and the snow blower (paddle type) didn't have any trouble last winter. But replacing it is still on our radar for the future.

Cindy Hamilton

[hallerb]

=BF=BDso my yard is

Paving companies want a NEW BASE, so the new pavement doesnt crack.

they skim off the old pavement and base, and avoid disturbing the soil underneath to minimize future settling.

[trader4]

Pavers are the most widely used form of permeable driveway material.

[trader4]

Whenever I've thought about the possibility of putting additional asphalt on top of existing, this obvious problem comes up. Usually you have areas where the driveway meets and existing grade, structure, etc. The best examples might be the garage door apron and the street. If you put down 3 inches of new asphalt over the old, how would you deal with that?

[N8N]

Right, but if I can't use a floor jack, jackstands, creeper, etc. on it, it's useless to me.

nate

[mkirsch1]

I asked a similar question a few weeks back. The general consensus was that the paving company would have NO PROBLEMS extending my turn- around and putting a new finish coat on top of the existing asphalt.

[Nate Nagel]

quoted text -

I'm not real serious at this point, but if you can dig it up without too much trouble I'd appreciate it, just out of curiosity (and maybe they have a web site I could browse to get a ballpark idea of what it'd cost)

nate

[hallerb]

The base stone gets contaminated and filled with dirt, so water cant drain under the asphalt.

add freezing and guaranteed cracks and heaving

around here paving companies refuse to warranty any driveway without a new base