The Driveway Project - Part 2

In my last post on the driveway project I told you that the paving company was returning to continue working on the driveway. Well, I got a call that Monday saying that they wouldn't be coming because thunder storms were in the weather forecast. The same thing happened on Tuesday. I was getting increasingly annoyed at this point and told them that they should at least send someone out to have a look at the settling/erosion that had happened over the past couple of weeks. They must have got the message, because they showed up on Tuesday afternoon. They did some more leveling to smooth over the recently created water-ruts, and I helped them mark (with string, measures, and bright orange spray paint) where the asphalt needed to be poured. Things were looking good - it was all marked out and there was clear weather in the forecast.

On Wednesday morning the paving crew started showing up at about 8am. The crew consisted of 8 guys. Their roles were roughly: 2 truck drivers, 2 paving machine operators, 2 to ensure the asphalt was flowing, and 2 edging behind the machine. Of course there was other stuff to do as well, and they also switched around a fair bit. Anyway, shortly after the crew turned up, so did the first load of asphalt and we were in business. They started at the top of the hill near the house. This was probably the hardest bit, since it covers a large area which means there's lots of joining to do. By 1pm they had made it about half way around the bend at the top of the hill and where approaching the straight. Several truck loads later they were almost at the bottom of the hill. And at around 5pm they finally made it to the end of the driveway where it joins the road.

There were a couple of minor hiccups along the way:

• Dragging the plate compactor over the freshly laid surface. This left a mark on the driveway for about 50ft or so. Hopefully it will fade.

• Running out of asphalt for about 45 minutes until the next truck returned. Not good since laying asphalt should be a continuous process where joins are completed while the material is still hot. There's a slight bump you might notice when driving over the join that had cooled.
  

• Laying a "wiggle" near where the driveway joins the road. I guess they must have been getting tired at this point (they'd been at it for 9 hours). This would have bugged me, so I asked them to correct it by adding to once side, cutting away from the other, and now it looks much better.

• Steam-rolling over the edge. Again, this happened near the end and I attribute it to fatigue. It squashed the edge down for a couple of feet, but probably won't be that noticeable after grass is growing.

Overall, I think they did a pretty good job. I'm glad I was around to keep an eye on them though. I liked working with this paving company because they wanted to do a good job that I was pleased with. I liked the fact that they would listen to me when I suggested something or told them what I wanted. The leveling/grading is especially impressive: I tested this by using the hose create a puddle of water in the middle of the driveway at the top of the hill. As I added water, the water soon started to flow down the hill. The impressive part of this is that the water flow made it's way around the bend, and all the way down the hill, before crossing the driveway and exiting in the precise location I wanted - about 300ft away from where I'd started the puddle. After seeing this, I'm hoping that my initial concerns about the drainage will turn out to be water under the bridge.



Here's a link to photos from asphalt pouring day.
Next up is moving the 20 tons of dirt required to backfill 4000 square feet of new driveway-edge...