Asphalt driveway damage / repair

[paulharvey]

The diagnosis makes sense. Our soil is very much silt - it's either soft and muddy or hard and dry and the last couple of winters have been crazy wet. Add the trucks to that, and crunch.

Wouldn't the sealing at least help avoid chunks lifting out during winter?

Anyway, I like the asphalt but I'm not $50k in love. (Dunno the real cost to replace, but we're talking 1000 feet of length)

Would a different finishing be more durable? I'm thinking millings or tar&chip.

Chip and tar, what we call Chip and Seal or "slag" will flex with the movement and is a good choice if, and only if, there's people around who can do it cheaply. I think for 50 lane miles, we where paying $2.40/ square yard, and a 1" thick over lay runs from $5-7.50/sy (large scale quantities, home owner price is probably double that).

The Grafco crack sealer is a (roughly) half rubber half asphalt that will seal cracks and also hold them together. It had to be heated in a kettle or heated crack sealer machine (approx 400-500 degrees), but there are some more consumer friendly products. If the entire (or a good percentage) 1000 lf of the drive is alligator cracked, the chip seal is a good option, and works well with an eventual asphalt overlay.

 

[Deere Dude]

I have a 1200' driveway that was alligatoring on the edges sometimes up to two feet in. Our situations are different in that no dump trucks or gravel trucks come on the driveway, just my 16,000# camper and my dually. This was neglected for years. I have a pretty decent base, I think so that wasn't a concern for me.

As suggested by someone on this site, I went to Lowes and got tar blocks, heated then to melt them on a 40-60,000 BTU burner, put that in something called a pour pot, then poured the liquid on the bad areas and my wife used a long handled ice scraper to smear it into the cracks. It is a rubberized darker color than the rest of the drive but works in my situation where light traffic is involved.

My ideal fix would be to pick up the to two inches and start over, but this is cheaper, although may not work in your situation. Cost for me was 75$ for the pour pot, $350 for tar, $100 for LP.

 

[katoomed00]

I'm tired of dealing with my asphalt driveway and ready for concrete. I am considering digging a footing around the perimeter of the asphalt and pouring concrete over it.
Any ideas as to the pros and cons of doing so?

 

[paulharvey]

I'm tired of dealing with my asphalt driveway and ready for concrete. I am considering digging a footing around the perimeter of the asphalt and pouring concrete over it.
Any ideas as to the pros and cons of doing so?

Concrete works out to be about 5 times the price, and if you have garbage subgrade and water problems, it will still crack and break up.

If we are talking about 10 or 20 cubic yards worth of concrete, it might be cost effective but if it's even a couple hundred feet long, forgot about concrete. If your driveway is really that bad, you could consider going with scarifying the asphalt and base, and add 6" of asphalt millings/rap to it. There really is no easy cheap way to fix problem roads, that's why road building costs so much.

 

[Streetcar]

Concrete overlay of asphalt is referred to as white topping. If the asphalt is structurally sound it can be cost effective . It is typically done on parking lots .

The OP pictures show a relatively new driveway that is rutting and alligator cracking.
He can either rubblize the asphalt and convert to gravel/ milling driveway or beef up and repair the asphalt. Sealing cracks will be waste of money in his case

 

[vtsnowedin]

The diagnosis makes sense. Our soil is very much silt - it's either soft and muddy or hard and dry and the last couple of winters have been crazy wet. Add the trucks to that, and crunch.

Wouldn't the sealing at least help avoid chunks lifting out during winter?

Anyway, I like the asphalt but I'm not $50k in love. (Dunno the real cost to replace, but we're talking 1000 feet of length)

Would a different finishing be more durable? I'm thinking millings or tar&chip.

No measuring tape in the photos but say 14 ft wide by 1000 ft long ?
if so and if your local price for state spec road asphalt was say $65 per ton placed it would be...
1000X14/9X.057X65.=$5763.33 for a one inch overlay with a tack coat sprayed on just in front of the paver. It is a nice straight drive and easy to do so you could get some good bids on the work.

 

[vtsnowedin]

I just redid mine a couple of years ago and had them grind everything up to create a better base, put gravel in trouble spots, dig some drainage and we ultimately went with 3", which should hold up better.

That is a good way to get to the bottom of the problem. I would only add that instead of adding gravel I would add just inch and a half minus concrete stone. The mix that comes out of the grinder already has too much sand in it and adding gravel which is a good mix of sand and stone doesn't have any extra stones to give to the ground up sand.
I've spread on as much as 0.17 tons of stone per square yard (a layer three inches deep) and had them mix it in with the second pass of the reclaimer. Overlaid with three inches of hot mix 2 binder 1 top and you get a road stronger then many of your state roads. Don't forget the drainage if needed though. Water is the worst enemy of a road.

 

[dgeesaman]

That is a good way to get to the bottom of the problem. I would only add that instead of adding gravel I would add just inch and a half minus concrete stone. The mix that comes out of the grinder already has too much sand in it and adding gravel which is a good mix of sand and stone doesn't have any extra stones to give to the ground up sand.
I've spread on as much as 0.17 tons of stone per square yard (a layer three inches deep) and had them mix it in with the second pass of the reclaimer. Overlaid with three inches of hot mix 2 binder 1 top and you get a road stronger then many of your state roads. Don't forget the drainage if needed though. Water is the worst enemy of a road.

All good info.

Drainage: in the areas where cracking is worst, is a very gentle slope and water runs down the length of the driveway. No cross-flow observed or expected. The lowest area crosses a small creek, floods occasionally and can get saturated for a week at a time, and yet is completely free of cracks. I suspect that's because it's built up thicker with a much better base.

My soil perc rate is extremely slow as it's mostly silt. Hard packed dirt in summer / soft wet mud or squishy turf on both ends of winter. I know that gravel spread in our paddocks will disappear - we roll out landscape cloth before gravel now - might this be happening under the driveway?

David

 

[dodge man]

Oil and chip over the top would help a little bit but would eventually break up also.

 

[vtsnowedin]

All good info.

Drainage: in the areas where cracking is worst, is a very gentle slope and water runs down the length of the driveway. No cross-flow observed or expected. The lowest area crosses a small creek, floods occasionally and can get saturated for a week at a time, and yet is completely free of cracks. I suspect that's because it's built up thicker with a much better base.

My soil perc rate is extremely slow as it's mostly silt. Hard packed dirt in summer / soft wet mud or squishy turf on both ends of winter. I know that gravel spread in our paddocks will disappear - we roll out landscape cloth before gravel now - might this be happening under the driveway?

David

It doesn't appear to be distressed enough for that to be the case. The pavement you have is keeping the base from mixing with the silt below but it isn't strong enough to avoid cracking when a truck goes over it when the base and subsoil is saturated in the spring.
When building new an eight inch layer of clean sand does about the same job as a geotextile fabric and often costs less. Which to use comes down to the cost of excavating out the extra eight inches or the strength and water level of the soil below.