Snow Storm

December continues to be a month of excessive weather. Over the past weekend we received approximately 12 inches of snow, probably more. The storm began on Friday, briefly eased on Saturday, and then continued into Sunday.

Of course the driveway was a challenge throughout. We made several attempts at clearing snow, but in the end, I think the storm got the better of us (this time).


The snow has finally stopped, the sun is shining, but temperatures remain below freezing. That's leading to icy conditions as the snow melts in the sun before refreezing. On a positive note we managed to fit in some excellent snow-shoeing and even some sledding.

Driveway In Action - Part 2

Back by popular demand is The Driveway In Action. This sequel to the original post (Part 1) shows the the tail end of another short storm that passed through this morning. Once again, keep a look out for potential drainage problems.

Weekend Statistics

Phew! The mountain of dirt that was blocking our driveway has been moved - one shovel load at a time. Needless to say, it was quite a busy weekend. Here are the statistics:

Dirt moved:	8 cubic yards (17,280 lbs or 8.64 tons)
Dirt loaded and unloaded:	30 cart loads
Trips up and down the driveway:	lots
Tractor hours:	~4 hours
Grass seeds spread:	~9000 seeds
Burlap laid:	750 square feet
Peonies dug up:	3
Peonies planted:	6
Rocks collected while digging:	lots
Mountain Dew consumed (by Dan):	6 cans (1,020 calories)
Man hours worked:	34 hours

And that leaves us with 2 tired-out people.

More Dirt

Guess what?! We’re moving dirt again. We just can’t get enough of the stuff. Here’s a photo of this mornings delivery:

The plan for the weekend looks like this:

1. Prepare the target areas by raking and leveling.
2. Distribute cart loads 1-10 to the rock side of the driveway.
3. Distribute cart loads 11-16 to the pole side of the driveway.
4. Distribute cart loads 17-18 to the top of the driveway.
5. Over-seed the edge of the driveway on the hill.
6. Spread cart loads 19-22 lightly over the seeded areas.
7. See how much is left, move cart loads 23-30 to holding area.
8. Seed and burlap the new areas.
   

And somehow we have to fit in transplanting peonies, cutting grass, and working on the new flowerbed.

Sounds like fun!

Driveway in Action - Part 1

For those of you who don't understand what all the driveway fuss is about, here's a short video with clips taken during a 15 minute rain-shower (storm) that passed through this afternoon. Keep a lookout for potential drainage problems.

Oh, and this is a lot better than it was.

The Driveway Project - Part 5

So, the thunderstorms that were in the forecast (and that left us hanging on the edge of our seats) in my last driveway post, never materialized. We got some light showers, resulting in 0.4 inches of rainfall, but nothing nearly as heavy as the prior ones.

However, over the past week we have had a lot more rain, including 1.21 inches on Wednesday alone. To get straight to the point, the driveway has been holding up much better than before. All the work that we've been doing is helping. The burlap and seed blankets have been holding the dirt and seedlings in place through-out the downpours. There's still been a heck of a lot of water running over sections of the ground (in little rivers), but now it's not moving so fast and taking everything with it. There's still some problem areas need attention, but the "tornado" effect has subsided.

The current problem areas are: at the top corner where the water goes over the edge (as shown by the arrows):


And at the bottom where all the water runs off the driveway after running down the hill. Here you can see the daylilys we planted as an effort to help with the erosion (minus the flowers that recently disappeared):


We just need to figure out the best way to handle these areas. Any ideas?

The other problem that we're going to have to deal with at some point is the growing number of weeds that are sprouting:


Although for the time being, weeds are better than nothing.

The Driveway Project - Part 4

Okay, so in The Driveway Project - Part 3, I told you how we came back from a weekend away to a bit of a disaster on our hands. We'd been trying to back-fill along the edges of our new driveway, with limited success. The good news is that things have improved significantly since then, even with a few set-backs along the way.

After seeing the paper based erosion control blanket ripped apart by gushing water, we decided to abandon that technique and try something a bit more heavy-duty. I found rolls of "burlap" (also known as "hessian") at the hardware store. This is a much stronger fabric like blanket that we thought should hold the soil and seed in place in the event of more rain. Well, after spending the entire weekend moving literally tons of dirt and re-doing the washed-out sections along the driveway, we got to see first hand what happens when a thunder storm hits.

On Monday morning at about 7am, the storm came through. I heard the rain on the sky-lights, went to check the weather radar online, and found a big red splodge heading right for us. I was outside within minutes and the rain was getting harder. With crashes of thunder loud and all around, the heavy rain turned heavier. A blanket of water quickly appeared on the large expanse of asphalt near the house, and like one big monster, stared moving, down the hill.

At about this point, Erin returned from her run (which was no longer a run as the rain was so hard and heavy that she couldn't run). Let's just say, after we saw the torrents of water running down the side of the driveway, we where able to understand how they'd made a 1 foot deep trench. We scrambled with sand bags to stop the water making the already damaged driveway worse. We saw the nylon netting holding the seed blanket in place ripped apart and the blanket wash down the slope. We saw our fresh top-soil, seeds, and many hours of hard work, being washed down the storm drain at the bottom of the driveway. And within about 15 minutes, the storm had passed. Not a very good way to start the day, especially if it's your birthday.

After the storm had passed, we assessed the situation and determined that it could have been worse. The burlap we'd put down after the first storm, actually held up pretty well - there just wasn't enough of it. The seed roll that broke free, did so because it didn't have enough stakes holding it in. So we bought more burlap, moved yet more dirt, and re-seeded again.

The paving company came and made their repair which turned out pretty well:


We haven't had any more rain since, so the burlap, top-soil and seeds are all still in place:


And lots of regular watering with the hose, means the grass is starting to grow:


We even decided to put some sod/turf rolls down over the area that had the water damage and has since been repaired, so that's looking good too.


After the last two storms, things have gradually been improving. However, the next test is coming tonight. Thunderstorms are forecast, and there's an 80% chance of rain. I might be waiting up with my flashlight to see what happens next...

Asphalt Prices Skyrocket

The price of asphalt is sky-rocketing (it's oil based) as you can see in this News Report. It's gone up by almost 50% in the past few weeks, for example:

July 16 - 31, 2008	$700
July 1 - 15, 2008	$625
June 2008	$517
May 2008	$447
April 2008	$410
March 2008	$362

I'm glad we got the driveway installed already!

The Driveway Project - Part 3

Disaster! We went away for a long weekend and came back to a disaster-zone.

Prior to leaving, we'd spent several days moving dirt, planting new grass seed, and watering. With over 1000 linear feet of driveway edge to work on (and with drainage concerns still in my mind), we prioritized the areas and began working on two main sections: around the bend at the top where I expected water to flow over the edge, and at the bottom where cars like to turn around.

We began by preparing the area by adding and leveling fill and top-soil, as you see here:


We then decided to try 2 alternative methods of seeding.

The first was using a paper based "seed roll" that had seeds and fertilizer mixed within a 80ft x 3ft paper roll.


The second was using a wood based 50ft x 4ft roll that was made of straw-like wood fibers against a nylon mesh.


At this point, the paper roll looked favorable. It was the easiest to lay down and had the seed and fertilizer all ready to go. With no rain and hot weather, several days watering followed. The first seedlings where starting to sprout just before we had to leave for a few days away. We hoped that they would survive until we returned...

We arrived back at the house in the evening just as it was starting to get dark. We'd seen rain in the forecast while we where away, we just didn't know how much. At the bottom of the driveway, in contrast to the jet-black fresh asphalt we'd left, this is what we saw:


You can see dirt, gravel, and wood chips washed across the asphalt. It looked like a mess, and we started to get a picture of how much rain we'd missed.

On moving up the driveway (walking at this point), there was more to come:


At this point, things where looking pretty bad. "This is not good.", I yelled back to Erin.


But the worst was yet to come. At the top bend, there was a complete collapse:


As you can see, we found a new 1 ft wide and 6-12 inches deep ditch running along a large part of the driveway. If you compare this to the earlier photo of the same area (as we left it) you might get an idea of how much of a shock this was for us. And needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

It turns out that while we where away some thunderstorms came through and dumped about an inch of water within 2 days. by the size of the ditches the rain created, I can only assume that the water must have come down pretty quickly, like 1/2 inch within an hour on each day. Once again, not happy.

So, I called the paving company and explained to them what had happened. They sent someone out to look at it, and will be returning to next week to try and repair it. We've started working on clean-up, and re-doing the areas that got washed out. I'm getting over the initial shock, things are gradually returning to normality, and we've got another weekend of moving dirt to look forward too.

On a more positive note, after all the rain, the new grass is growing:



But in the meantime, my thoughts return to drainage ditches and erosion control.

I'm sure there'll be more updates on The Driveway Project to come.

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...

The Driveway Project - Part 1

On moving into our new house we knew that the driveway needed to be paved. I heard from the builder that he'd left it ready for paving when he'd finished it several years ago, but it was never completed. As anyone who's seen it recently knows, it has significantly deteriorated since then. The problem is mostly due to the steepness of the drive, the amount of water that is diverted onto it, and the fine gravel base. You see, the house sits on top of a hill, and the driveway is about 500 feet (150 meters) long. When we get lots of rain the velocity of water running down the slope likes to take the gravel with it. This results in huge 1 foot deep gouges/channels/ruts in places where the water has eroded deep into the ground. Needless to say, the Driveway Project was initiated.

The Paving Project started by getting estimates from several paving companies. I arranged to meet with each one, so that we could discuss my concerns about the drainage. The concern is about where all the water will go. Erosion along the edge of a driveway can cause it to crack and crumble away. Several options where suggested along with difference widths, depths of asphalt, etc. These options included curbing, grading, drainage ditches, dry-wells and more. At this point we also consulted with a Civil Engineer and the Town Engineer. Apparently where we live there is a zero additional watershed policy, which means you're not allowed to direct water off your property onto the public roads etc. without permission. At this point I was beginning to wonder if we where over-thinking it a bit.

Eventually I selected a paving company and scheduled them to do the work at the start of June. They'd said it would take 2-3 days, so I presumed that if they started on a Wednesday, they would be finished by the weekend. Things seemed to be going well when they started the preparation work on Tuesday, a day early. They brought in several truck loads of stone "process" material to level and grade the base. We had a rain on Wednesday, but by the end of Thursday, the base looked like it was coming to completion.

Two weeks passed without the paving company doing any more work. Apparently they wanted to let the base "settle" before continuing work on the driveway. That makes sense and in the days after the work they did, we did notice several soft spots appear. Unfortunately we've also had some of that rain I mentioned a few paragraphs prior, and now yet again there are several good sized ruts running down it. Not as bad as before, but never-the-less, not ready for asphalt.

The paving company are due to return tomorrow, so we'll see what happens next...