We signed a contract to remove 307 square yards of "pavement"**, fine grade and compact, and install bituminous asphalt***, and roll.
The specified depth was 4 inches for removal and for replacement. The price was 8800 dollars in Baltimore County, Md.
In fact, they only went down between 1 1/8 and 1 1/4 inches.
Is 8800 dollars a fair price for an inch and a quarter, or was that the fair price for 4 inches?
If the second, what would be a fair price for 4 inches?
Must we redo the job, or is 1 1/4" good enough for a few years if we get a reduction in price?
I know they removed the same depth from one side to the next and all along, because they used a big fancy machine, 7 or 8 feet, that takes the same amount off everywhere.
**which in fact was blacktop on top and some grainy white stuff below that, ***bituminous asphalt is blacktop, right?
I can't address the price issue as that is a very local thing and can vary a lot depending on locality.
307 square yards is 2763 square feet if I did the math right. This is either a big driveway or a small parking lot.
This comes down to the wording of the contract. Remove to a maximum depth of, compact and top with asphalt and you got what you signed for. 1.25" of properly rolled asphalt (twice that before rolling) over a sound compacted base will last a long time in a driveway or light duty parking lot.
Here, twenty years ago , I paid $1200 for 1000 square feet with no removal over an existing sound base. The driveway is still looking great and I know I got a great price at the time. To put it in perspective, I think gasoline was about 50 cents a gallon at the time.
Sorry. It actually said "Excavate approximately 307 square yards of failed pavement to a 4" average. .... Install approximately 307 sqaure yards with a 4" average of bituminous asphalt. ..."
They could have, might have, dug out a sample before bidding, because the there were chunks missing in a crack that made up a tiny portion off the top layer. The crack was probably an inch deep and maybe more, inch. But even if they didn't take a sample, their bid must be for some other job than ours, because they only removed 1 1/4.
Well that's good. I don't like to redo things even if someone else gets stuck paying for it.
I'm going to try to put all of this in my head.
We can't tell you the appropriate depth for your parking lot repaving. But you should already know it . The 3 or more estimates that you got should have mentioned depth. If they all say 4" then I'd go on the assumption that
4" as needed and 1 1/4" is inadequate. But 4" of asphalt sounds like a lot to me. Does your contract mention digging to 4", and then gravel, and then compacting, and then asphalt? What does the contract or estimate say?
say you got hosed. Were you there when they were doing the work? Did you question it? On something like this, being there is extremely important.
Taking out 4" of failed material and replacing it with new is way different than taking out only 1 1/4 of material. IMO, if it was really failing, what they did likely did not address most of the problem and it will last a fraction as long as if it were done to spec. And IMO, what they did isn't worth paying for at all, because to fix it to what was specd, you have to start all over.
Friend of mine is a retired road superintendent for my country. If I recall from our conversations, 1.25/1.50 is a normal application of asphalt for roads anyway.
When they build a road, the top layer is only the last step of a process that's probably a foot or more in total thickness. . It starts with a properly prepared and compacted base, typically of crushed stone or similar. Then a base course which is a heavier/ rougher mix aggregate several inchs thick is applied. Only then is the final FABC, which is the very top layer applied. That hardly compares to taking 1 1/4 off the top of a failed parking lot and replacing it with another 1 1/4 of material. If it failed, the problem goes deeper than 1 1/4 and unless you fix that, it typically isn't going to last. You typically spec taking out many inchs of material to get down to what is stable, then build back up from that. Besides, if everything is peechy keen with 1 1/4, then why did the contract spec taking out and replacing 4" of material?
You have to watch out for asphalt guys, in my old house I ordered a retopping and resloping of an existing driveway. I wanted to add 4 inches of topping against the house then have it taper to 1.5 inchs of new topping at the far end so water would run away from house. The first estimator that showed up (in a brand new F250 truck) measured from my chalkline down and told me "you'll need 5 inches", I told hime "no it's just 4 inches", he pointed to the "5" on his measuring tape. I immediately pointed to the fact that his tape started with a "1" instead of a "0". The guy had actually cut the first inch off his Stanley tape to gyp an extra inch out of people and really lay 1 fewer inch than what was paid for. Needless to say he was not hired, but he did kind of shake his head as he walked to his shiny new truck after being caught. He was quite embarassed, maybe he was used to fooling housewives, instead of someone who walks around with a measuring tape all day and knows they dont start with "1" inch.
Is this an old trick in the asphalt estimators trade or what?
You're talking to me, right, mm, the OP? Not to Rick (or Colby).
It was not my job, but I was there for 3/4 of the excavation. (Somehow they seem to have excavated and repaved one quarter before they started on the other 3/4s. Maybe it was the previous day. There are some days I don't go out of the house.
I didn't question it, because I didn't realize it didn't match the contract I had looked at the contract a week or more earlier and I probably saw the 4", but I had no recollection of that when I was watching. (I have a B.A in mathematics, but usually can't remember a number for more than 5 minutes.) It was only that night when a friend and neighbor called to ask about the striping between parking places that I looked again at the whole contract and noticed the 4".**
The guy who did hire them wasn't there, not at all afaik. He might work 9 to 5 and didn't think to send someone else. I think many of the people on the board know I don't work 9-5, and they could have asked me, but A) Maybe the right people don't know, because I don't talk about my wierd work schedule because they might be jealous, even though I think if they traded, they'd want to trade back within a month, B) I screwed up my last little assignment (making phone calls) C. It probably didn't occur to anyone that someone should watch.
Good. That's what I thought.
No. There were other problems too, a separate small patch that was d>mm,
Makes good sense. I wasn't in charge. I talked to the guy yesterday a little bit but I had to go somewhere. Out all day today. And I didnt' think to ask about the other bids. IMO, when they took up the inch and a quarter, it looked good underneath. Even before any grading or compacting.
Sorry. It actually said "Excavate approximately 307 square yards of failed pavement to a 4" average. .... Install approximately 307 sqaure yards with a 4" average of bituminous asphalt. ..."
The best situation would be if we really only needed 1 1/4 and they typed wrong or bid wrong. In either case, the question then woudl be was the 8000 plus dollars for 4 inches, in which case we should pay less. Or was the price right and only depth mistyped.
And the other bids will be very indicative. Thanks for suggesting that.
They also painted stripes between the parking places, the day after they did the paving, because that was ordered by the apartment building next door, but not by us. Everyone on the board noticed the stripes because we didn't request and didn't get a bid on them! Because we didn't expect them, we made no effort move the cars, although almost everyone was at work, but there were still 10 or 20 cars or more, so they couldn't do the stripes on either side of those cars. So they had to come a second time to put in the stripes they missed, even though by then they realized we weren't going to pay them for this part. (A lot of people didn't want the stripes. We look like a supermarket now, and in a few years they'll be dim, dirty, and unattractive, and we'll have to redo them or wait until we do the whole road/parking lot again.)
They did come back and fill in the missing stripes, and they're not charging for any stripes. I don't know if there was an argument or not. I hope to find out.
I don't understand. The tape starts with the first inch, right? That's why it starts with a 1. Because it's the first inch.
You should have been grateful to have a guy who knows how to properly modify those tape measures. A lot of them are sold new with the inch before 1. (and how can there possibly be an inch before one? That's like saying my lot is negative 100 feet by negative 100 feet.)
They sell them this way so that when people meaure their height, they'll think they are shorter than they are. Then everyone will feel inferior except the guys who sell tape measures.
Don't know.
I did have a tape that was very much damaged at the end and I cut off one inch, and I always got conrused when I tried to measure something. I thought about cutting off another 11 inches, but I thought that would be just as confusing, and the tape would be even shorter. I probably had gotten the tape for free and it was probably my only tape. We didn't spend much money when I was little, and I probably had to grow up and get a real job before I would spend money on a tape. I wouldn't even buy a candy bar until I got not just a real job but a good job. It wasn't in our budget. My mother always said to me, "You can have anything you want as long as you don't want anything." It worked pretty well.
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