What to do with/to this driveway?

[Tok]

Hi All,

First post here! Been stumbling through the forums, and there's heaps of good advice. I'm hoping someone/s can point me in the right direction with my driveway...

See attached piccies. Basically, it's an old concrete driveway with heaps of aggregate. It's cracked to buggery, has a few potholes, and has the roots of some pretty big trees pushing it up in places.

Now, my question is this: do I rip this driveway up, and start from scratch? Or can/should I whack a layer of roadbase over this, and then re-concrete?

The driveway (in fact the whole block) is on a considerable slope, so raising the height of the driveway another 4-6 inches won't make a lot of difference.

Suggestions, anyone?

Thanks!

Tok

[Sturdee]

It depends on the cost effectiveness of getting someone to rip up and remove the old concrete compared to the cost of the laying down the new layer of road base and compacting it.

It might be cheaper to get the old concrete removed, but if you are going to do all the work yourself ( like I have done :eek: ) then leave the old concrete and put down the road base and compact it before reconcreting.

Peter.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Hi ya Tok,
Welcome to the forum, its always a bit of a toss up in these situations but from your photos I would take up the old stuff down to about 250mm from Final finished level. By the looks of what you have now that means you probably will be digging through the original subbase and some soil too.
Give yourself 150mm of compacted thickness roadbase and 100mm thick 32 mpa concrete with steel mesh. You could use steel dowels at the joints if you have a root problem.
If when you are excavating you come across a large root, >150mm diameter I would think twice about cutting it as it may weaken the tree instead use that as your subgrade level. Try to get 98% compaction of your roadbase, it may be worth a hire of a small ride on vibrating roller if not compact 50mm layers with a flat plate compactor using plenty of water, Recycled roadbase is cheaper ask for equivilent of DGB 20. Dont forget your control joints.
What I've just dribbled on about is a bit of an over kill but my moto is IF ITS WORTH DOING........

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Resurfacing over the top would only be a temporary patch, so long as there are large tree roots underneath near the surface. [shrug]

I tend to agree with BThumb, but then you run the risk of damaging/destabilising the trees...

Mebbe a compromise? Perhaps some bedding sand compacted over the top and paved with individual bricks/pavers/slabs of slate? It'd probably be a bit cheaper than stripping/replacing although more expensive than just resurfacing, but IMHO it'd be more appealing to the eye and, most important of all, it's not a permanent structure. A few years down the line, it'd be a simple matter to patch any future damage or rip it all up and use the materials elsewhere.

(Personally I'd go for natural edged slate in mixed colours. That way, any dips/rises/pot-holes just add to the natural look. The straight edges of bricks & most pavers, on the other hand, tend to exaggerate any discrepancies and look 'orrible. Well... that's my opinion, anyway. )

[Tok]

Thanks all!

It's sounding more and more like it will be a case of ripping up the existing driveway, and putting down a new one.

Not a total tragedy though: we're living on a fairly steep embankment, and we're looking to terrace the backyard, so I'll probably end up using the removed material as fill for some of that ... depending on how much steel etc is in the original material.

Thanks for the feedback ... I've got a lot of reno jobs coming up with this house, the driveway is just the tip of the iceberg! Hopefully with what I learn through trial and error, and off these forums, I can share further down the track!

Cheers!

T