bfmgoalie
Veteran Member
Cost me $25.99 at WalMarts. 
Black Driveways Matter
- Thread starter Twisted_Metal
- Start date
That looks nice! Love the smell of asphalt, hmm, maybe conjure up a cologne? Down south here 99% of driveways are concrete, easier on the feet in the heat! We don't have the freeze thaw problems you northerners have to deal with. Up north they would put a rock base down before pouring, here; everything is just poured on top of the sandy soil. My neighborhood when built had "troughs" in the lawns 3-5 ft from street and each driveway had a corresponding trough to channel the water towards the storm drains. Of course after 40 years, the lawns have grown and you just end up with a driveway wide puddle of water in your driveway. When I retired from batching concrete last June my boss gave me 10 yards of concrete for free (about $1300). First thing I did was tear out 13' of my driveway and form it up so it would drain to street. Did a back patio/trailer pad/sidewalk to pool with the rest of the 10 yards, drive took about 5 yards. Cheryl is very happy to not get out of her car and step in puddle of water if she has to get something out of the back. So much easier to pressure wash driveway now too.
I'd love to be able to do concrete, but as you say, a cold climate is not friendly during freeze/thaw.
I've been in the north all my life and I was amazed at the age of 25 or so when I traveled south and saw complete neighbourhoods with concrete driveways. Could not believe it.
Yea in the south house slabs poured on grade, even most industrial buildings, although there slabs are thicker are just poured on the ground, just some poly plastic barrier put down. The fun part is on riverfront or ocean front where they do augercast footings for buildings. Big drill bit, drills and then they pump concrete into the hole, through the bit as they pull it out of the hole. Or cell phone towers they drill a 3 or 4 foot hole and then put a metal ring on a levelling stand at ground level, usually takes about 8 yards of concrete or more to fill hole, special mix design for that (very wet, 8.5" slump concrete), your pouring into a hole full of water, the water comes to the top and they contain and pump it off into a trailer. Seen some interesting concrete mixes; heavy sand, steel shot and granite in the mix, so heavy per yard we could only haul 6 yards at a time. Went into 3 foot thick walls for proton therapy cancer treatment rooms. Stuff with polystyrene in it to stabilze ground under a bridge deck we poured, they were having problems with the footing. Frickin polystyrene would blow all over your truck and in your cab if windows were not shut when they were dumping huge 1 yard bags into hopper on truck. Months later it will still all over the plant grounds.
Wow. Trying to get a slab poured on grade for a house here where I live is just as much money as a full basement. Engineers, digging, substrate, frost wall, blah, blah...
Looking at a heated slab, so it's more. I'm tired of the covid excuse, but apparently we now have a concrete shortage too...
Looking at a heated slab, so it's more. I'm tired of the covid excuse, but apparently we now have a concrete shortage too...
Probably a cement shortage, I've run into that before, or long lines of tankers waiting at the mill since a couple of silos were broken or down for repair. Nothing like banging on the side of your plant silo to get the last few tons out to complete a load, or tricking the scale and going outside and using a valve to drop some flyash or slag in the mix, all goes into the cement scale so the computer never knows it was ash or slag going in. Then there was the flyash (remains of burnt coal, used in place of cement, when mixed with cement it basically turns into cement, finishes nicer than a straight cement mix and cheaper, also used slag form iron ore smelting) fiasco of 2019, the big bosses had to get involved with which plants would get a tanker of flyash. With all the coal plants going off line it was in short supply, I had tankers coming from S Carolina at times. Of course I could only use certain flyashes since I was a DOT plant and are mixes were certified using flyash from one company like RRG (recovered resources group). I don't miss that job at all. Especially when dispatch moves a big order into your plant and its got a mix that is like 50% cement, 50% slag and you did your tanker request the day before based on what the schedule said you were going to use. Or some plant was running an order and broke down or due to poor planning on supers part, runs out of a material, now all those trucks are at your plant using your materials up. Retired life is good! Do miss the problem solving, but hey just repaired a dryer for some friends (heating element) so I keeping my skills sharp.
73RATTYZ28
Veteran Member
Did mine 10 years ago but the oil truck has done a number on it. Don't think the new asphalts are as hard as the old stuff so be careful if you have oil deliveries.
ssupercoolss
Veteran Member
Definitely. they have changed the composition of the asphalt (the liquid) that basically binds it all together. Its softer, so even asphalt that was done years ago, you will notice when it gets really hot, suffers from scuffing when people turn the wheels on their car without moving. Walking through a shopping center on a hot day, you will notice this. Sealcoat is basically gone the same way as well. Its kind of a problem, no matter how much compaction you get, you will get marks on it, and we always get calls about "poor workmanship", and of course the contractor is to blame even if the materials just arent what they used to be.
