How To Pave A Perfect Driveway

Ever wonder how those big new driveways get their picture perfect look? It is a lot of hard work, but in the end it is all worth it. It makes your house and yard look wonderful. Also having a paved driveway is better for most home owners than a dirt driveway. A driveway that has been paved with asphalt is less likely to damage cars with flying rocks or leave a vehicle dirty or muddy. I am going to guide you thru this back breaking process. Here is a list of things you will need to do and purchase before we start. You will need to measure the drive way, by length and width so you can price your materials. The amount of asphalt you will need to pave a driveway will be determined by the size of your space. Measure your area by square ft. and take those measurements to the home improvement store. Then find a team of hard strong workers. Now you will need a roll of yellow caution tape, some markers, a couple of shovels, spades, rakes, tamps, a jack hammer, a hand roller, and a ride on roller, wheel barrel and a spreader box. You will also need gravel, base, black top and top soil to back fill, also a dump truck to remove the old driveway material.
Next you will need four or more men to do the labor, it depends on how large the driveway is that you are working on. One of the easiest ways to make a driveway is to simply clear the land, compress it with heavy machinery and begin using it to gain access to and from a home or building. Is this the best way to go about creating a driveway? Not really, and this is because seasonal conditions and soil erosion will quickly degrade the path and make it either boggy and muddy or bumpy and full of rocks and impediments. It might also be outside of local building codes and regulations too. This is the reason that most home and property owners will eventually pave their driveway with one of several reliable materials. For the purpose of this discussion we will consider the costs of paving a driveway that is roughly 12'x50' (or 600 square feet) in size. Before the paving process can begin, however, the space must be suitably prepared for the work. This requires clearing the area of debris, grading the soil in order to receive the paving materials, creating a base, and then adding the pavement. A standard paving project will include costs such as: Excavation, clearing, and tree chipping or removal - costs include:Workers to clear, cut or chip light trees of less than 6" in diameter will cost $48 per hour;Stump removal averages at $68 per tree;Chipping trees larger than 18" in diameter costs $20 to $40 dollars; and Site clearing over an area of a single acre (using heavy machines and skilled laborers) averages between $150 to $400 per hour. Grading - depending upon the type of pavement to be applied, grading averages at roughly $2.35 per square yard;Pavement - gravel is the most common choice, and for a 2" layer poured and prepared the costs would average at roughly $800. Asphalt is the next most common choice and at 2.5" thickness it would cost roughly $830 to be professionally installed. Concrete is also a very popular option, and with its long life and remarkable durability it is also among the most cost effective. It will average at $75 per cubic yard, and this means that the project described here would demand roughly 7.5 cubic yards for a cost of $562 in materials alone. Lastly, a homeowner might opt for pavers such as cobblestones, which come at a significantly higher price, and average around $30 per square foot - which would cost $18000 for the project described here. Additional considerations and costs Engineering - whenever driveways have any sort of slopes, curves, or angles in them it usually means that costs are going to increase. Generally this is due to the need for engineering to allow runoff to properly drain away from the home and into the street, and it usually also means more labor in preparing the surface. Additionally, sloped and curved drives involve more materials which only increases the total costs too.
Now the construction is ready to begin. In this step you will need to rip up the old driveway. You do this by breaking it up with the jack hammer and the shovels. When this is complete pickup and removes all the old driveway material with the wheel barrel and dump it. Next you will use a couple of markers to mark where the boundaries of the driveway will be. Now here is where the real hard work begins. The first step is called laying the top soil, in this procedure you will need to shovel. Shoveling is not that easy in this case. You need to be precise where you spread the top soil, so it will be easier to rake out evenly. Now flatten it out with the ride on roller.
Step two is called dumping the stone. Just like the last step you will need to shovel the gravel, spreading it across the area where the driveway is going to be laid. Spread the gravel until it is at least 2 inches thick but no deeper than 8 inches. You will also need to rake this out evenly as possible. Next you will tamp the sides of the driveway. You do this by using the tamp, and flatting out the edges and the side of the materials you just put down. Now take the ride on roller and roll the area flat. Your next step is called laying the base. The base is a rougher blend of asphalt. Just as in the earlier steps you will need to spread it evenly with the shovel. Then tamp the sides really well, and then roll it out as evenly and flat as possible.
In step four you will lay the top blend; this is a fine blend of asphalt and it is also the most expensive out of them all. This is needed to complete the final layer that will complete the driveway. In this step you will need to move very quickly, and work with an eagle eye. On this layer you will need to use a spreader box instead of a shovel. The spreader box is a machine that the asphalt is poured into and then spread out with also. The top blend has to be very; very hot when it is spread, this is why you use a spreader box instead of the shovel. But don’t put your shovels away just yet. You will still need them to spread the top blend in areas where the spreader box cannot fit. In those areas you will need to rake them out fine as possible, and then roll it out flat as possible with the hand roller. After doing this you will get the ride on roller and flatten out the whole driveway.
Now last but not least, the final step in creating this beautiful picture perfect driveway is called spraying and back filling. In this step you will spray the area of the driveway with water and more top soil. The water is to cool the hot asphalt so it will form and mold to the area faster. And then you use top soil to back fill. This is where you take the top soil to fill in any cracks or edges that are uneven. Once everything is filled in fully and evenly roll it flat with the ride on roller. Then let the asphalt dry and avoid driving on the paved area for at least a day as the asphalt cools and cures. To make sure everyone is aware of this cross off the driveway with yellow caution tape. Now those were the steps to paving a perfect driveway. It is definitely easier said than done. Try it for yourself and you be the judge.