Driveway Material

[AndyMan]

I poured my own concrete driveway, one square at a time. It was cheaper and more fun than asphalt, plus the kids can play on it in the summer without complaining of hot feet.

This time of year I could really truly trade it in. The light color does not absorb the sunlight well, so it does not heat up enough to help me clear it. It will soften some, but does not clear itself like good old pitch black asphalt.

 

[Wayne195]

I poured my own concrete driveway, one square at a time. It was cheaper and more fun than asphalt

Cheaper?? I thought cement driveways' are more expensive than asphalt??

 

[RobertBrown]

Cheaper?? I thought cement driveways' are more expensive than asphalt??

The price of asphalt has doubled in the past 6 years, maybe more I haven't checked lately. I suspect that Adyman's driveway is fairley short if he poured it himself "1 square at a time" so the the cost for setting up is as much as the asphalt. So he saved money by doing it himself.

 

[grnspot110]

Don't have any "new" info on this, but I read an article in a magazine (Popular Science or something similar) 15-20 years ago that (at that time) over a ten year period, with proper maintenance, concrete & asphalt were equal in cost. Reason being, that asphalt takes more yearly upkeep than concrete. This figure included all prep-work, application & maintenance. ~~ grnspot110

 

[Hershey]

I prefer cement anyway. Perhaps it is just because that is what I am more familiar with. Asphalt just hasn't been something I've been attracted to, so to speak.

 

[BKBrown]

Not trying to be a "know it all" here, but Cement is what goes in the mix to make Concrete. Cement by itself is just a powder that binds and hardens the mixture of sand and gravel.

 

[JDgreen]

Not trying to be a "know it all" here, but Cement is what goes in the mix to make Concrete. Cement by itself is just a powder that binds and hardens the mixture of sand and gravel.

Getting to this thread late, and BK you are right, cement is just the powder that binds the materials used to make concrete together. I have done a lot of pads and sidewalks with self-mixed concrete but believe me, a cannot imagine pouring any sort of a driveway of any size with even a decent size mixer, it takes so long to put each batch together you can never get a decent job on a large pour unless you have several people, the wet concrete will set up so fast it's very hard to get each batch to bind together. Even having all the materials ready and with my experience I had to limit my sidewalk pours to sections three feet wide by 4 feet long by 4 inches thick at a time...that was only 4 cubic feet at a time and I wasn't using bagged readi-mix stuff. I was using a section of chain link fence to bind all the sections together and five years later the walk looks pretty good.

 

[LittleRed]

Concrete really can be a nice alternative. If it doesn't clear because it doesn't heat, at least you can rest assured that it's easier to scrape than asphalt, which keeps the ice because it grips the gaps.

 

[AndyMan]

I suspect that Andyman's driveway is fairly short if he poured it himself "1 square at a time" so the the cost for setting up is as much as the asphalt. So he saved money by doing it himself.

Not sure what you'd consider "short", but the driveway is just under 250 feet long. We poured it over 4 years: year 1: the 24 x 48' pad in front of the garage plus a rear porch; year 2: front porch, sidewalk and a bit more on the drive; year 3: half way up the drive; year 4 completed the drive to the road. The squares vary in size. The pad squares are 4x6, the drive starts with a double row of 4x5 squares, then switches to a section of tire-tracks - 3x3 squares with a grassy strip down the center (had to be different :wink , then widens back out as it nears the road.

Each year we would get another 20 tons or so of stone plus a pile of sand and lots of bags of cement. We have our own mixer and tools, so we would go as far as those supplies would take us. Around here, the biggest expense for this sort of project is the labor. More than half of any project cost in these parts goes for labor. By doing it ourselves we had to wait for the finished project, but saved at least half of what we would have paid a contractor.

The pad was initially poured in 2001, and is just now beginning to show signs of wear. We had to patch one square last summer, and may have to patch another this year. All in all it has held up rather well. I'm attaching a summertime picture of the driveway itself, not including the pad, which starts one square behind the backgammon board.

(Yes, I know my son is rip-sticking barefoot. :ashamed

 

[Pika]

That is great! We would love to do that. What was involved in getting it prepped to pour the concrete? Did you have to dig down and stuff? I will have to do some research and see if we can start increasing our driveway.