Asphalt/Concrete Driveway Requirements

[ERNIEB]

Roger, The road building has been pretty well covered, but I'll offer the following. The Trucks you describe can legally gross 80,000. Whether the trucks are legal or not is the question. In cases were the truck is weighed the driver should have a ticket showing the gross weight. Very few steel dumps can legally haul 25 tons.
I run a tandem dump usually grossing 24 to 26 tons and I can tell you I NEVER drive onto a concrete driveway or jump a curb at a private residence. I have several rules when delivering, some I'm flexible on, these two I'm not.
There is a stretch of road on IH10 between Houston and San Antonio that has signs telling truckers to use the left lane. The reason being, that the right lane is like your neighbors driveway, and steadily getting worse. And this is a highway that was built under strict specifications, knowing it would have to handle truck traffic.
I know none of this sounds good, but it is something you should keep in mind.

Ernie
"Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat; the Alamo has none." - graffito found on a wall of the Alamo, 1836

 

[Bird]

Camshaft, I'm a bit surprised to hear that contractors frequently leave the wire mesh or rebar on the bottom, but I guess if the owner doesn't specify differently, it's cheaper. On the project I mentioned earlier, our specifications called for 3/8" rebar on 16" centers, tied at every crossing, and supported on pedestals in the middle 1/3 of the concrete.

Bird

 

[CamshaftLF]

Well Bird it may seem suprising but the next time the neighbors are doing a poject like a driveway or a sidewalk or patio, walk over & check it out. If the steel isn't on supports, it will more than likely stay on the bottom, which really isn't cheaper, because the homeowner paid for it to begin with.

How you stated it being put in with pedestals & tied together is absolutely the correct way to do it.

Also, I enjoy this job very much, wouldn't give it up for the world because I get to check out everybody's toys <font color=orange> orange </font color=orange><font color=blue> blue </font color=blue><font color=green> green </font color=green><font color=yellow> yellow </font color=yellow> <font color=red> red </font color=red>/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif


Camshaft in Pa

 

[Bird]

Camshaft, I know it's a common mistake on "do it yourself" projects, I was just surprised that a professional contractor might do it.

I'm sure you do have an interesting job. When we were building my brother's house, and the truck arrived to pour the concrete for the footers, the driver asked me where we were from; said he knew we weren't from Texas because we had dug it out to provide a 4' crawl space under the house, and in Texas nearly everything is built on a slab foundation now./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Of course, my two brothers used to be home builders in Alaska, so we were building it a little differently that what's normally done in Texas.

Bird

 

[Von]

Bird,
Do any of the homes in your area have basements? Around here its odd to see a house on a slab, and the few that are that way are hard to sell. Its odd how one thing works in one part of the country and not in another. I noticed in Pittsburg PA. most of the houses have the garage under the house, like a walk out basement is here. Then there are one or more floors above that. Makes for a lot of stairs to climb.

 

[heehaw]

funny you mention that contractors leave the wire on the bottom of a concrete pour; just last friday i was watching a pour at a govt building here in town; one of the workers pulled the wire up once, then promptly stepped on it as he moved to another location, and put the wire right back on the bottom..this was a GSA contract job, and no inspector anywhere around; there were a couple engineers standing there, but they were like me, just watchin..they said this is a big problem, if the inspector isn't right on top of every pour, the reinforcement, wire or rebar, goes on the bottom..
what do you use to seal the concrete??
heehaw

 

[Bird]

Von, I know what you mean about the differences in different parts of the country. I spent about 4 months in '93 doing a gas leakage survey from Waverly, NY, down to Towanda, PA, and I think every house I saw had a basement. I do know of homes with basements in the Central Texas area, especially some big and very old mansions, and while I'm sure there must be some, I don't know of any that were built with basements in the last 50 to 60 years. The other major difference I noticed is that brick veneer homes were very rare up there, but that's what the vast majority of the homes built in this area in the last 25 to 35 years are. I've heard of several reasons for that; the most frequently mentioned being that the slab is poured with a "ledge" on the edge for a base for the bricks, whereas a home built with a basement would be much more difficult to provide a solid support under the bricks, but of course, it can certainly be done. I think the major reason for the slab foundations and lack of basements is simply the additional cost.

Bird

 

[heehaw]

i always figured the reason for more basements in the northern states was the depth they had to dig to get below the frost line; if ya gotta dig 4-6 ft for a footing, why not add a little more an have more space??
heehaw

 

[GlueGuy]

<font color=blue>if ya gotta dig 4-6 ft for a footing, why not add a little more an have more space??</font color=blue>

I never thought about it, but that makes a lot of sense. Where I grew up in the midwest, almost everyone had a basement. In Minnesota it was mixed, depending on how close you were to the lake. My brother has a basement, but he floor of the basement is above the lake level. My Dad doesn't have a basement, because it would be underwater./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

The GlueGuy

 

[dmccarty]

I'll second Camshafts comments about using wire and rebar in concrete pours. I was reading a couple of books on working with concrete and one of the mistakes most often made was not tying the wire/rebar to chairs to keep the reinforcment from moving to the ground during the pour. One of the pictures they showed was the reinforcement sitting on top of a broken brick.

Where I used to live in KY years ago they were still building the subdivision we lived in so I would watch the houses being built. I saw ALOT of house with reinforcement sitting on top of broken bricks prior to a pour. It looked sloppy to me but what did I know? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I saw the brick picture in the book and got a chuckle. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I would spec fiber reinfocement now a days just because that can't get screwed up as far as I know. BUT, I still like the idea of the metal reinforcement! Does not make sense but it somehow feels better! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later...
Dan