Concrete Driveways

The driveway is the first part of the house where your visitor will experience the comfort the rest of your house can give. Make it a lasting impression on them. Invest on a well built pavement and long lasting car passage that can only be found in concrete driveways.

Concrete is a good choice of material for driveways in most homes. Home owners prefer such because of its enduring strength that can extend to 30 years of usage. In some cases, concrete driveways were found to extend lifespan to 50 years. But this however is not a product of miraculous material. Concrete is still concrete and it is still prone to faulting. Concrete driveways that can last a lifetime are mainly a result of years of proper, constant and strict maintenance and, of course, correct construction.

Good looking and well performing driveways however start with a good concrete driveway construction. It is important to know that concrete is a material that works well if the foundation is being laid out well too. A solid and stable ground is a good base for concrete driveway. The soil must be flattened and evened. The soil composition is also a good determinant for a good concrete driveway result. Clayish ground may need to be applied and filled with other porous materials like sand and gravel. But it is always best to free the ground of any debris or wastes, such as grass fibers, buried wood logs, large stone chunks and roots from plants.

Then the ground must be made compact in order for the driveway pavement to have a sturdy foundation. After which, another layer of material that will help strengthen the foundation will be applied, the most common of this is the subgrade material like crushed stones. Consult with engineers or driveway contractors to support any weakness that may be brought by the composition of the soil. These experts will suggest layering thickness of these subgrade materials to 4 inches. It must then be made even and uniform all throughout the length of the driveway. Any inconsistency of the thickness of the underlying foundation will only cause serious problems on the driveway.

A properly solidified ground will spell the life span of concrete driveways and will help prevent the occurrence of concrete driveway cracks. Concrete is hard because it is compressed after drying and hardening. But when concrete is laid on a soft and nonsolid ground, concrete will decompress as the weight of the car creates pressure on it. This results to a bending effect that will create fine cracks, and eventually, these fine cracks will grow larger.

Control joints are also very helpful in preventing cracks in concrete driveways. When concrete hardens after drying, concrete tends decreases in size thus resulting to a tension or pressure that will cause the concrete to expand. To remedy this, concrete driveway contractors have long been using control joints. Control joints are like guide lines that will channel the tension to these anti-stress lines. This will then prevent the pressuring effect of concrete’s shrinkage. When the concrete hardens, this is the best time to set up these control joints by cutting through with a concrete saw. The depth of the control joints must be sufficient enough to handle the stress brought by the shrinking pressure. An ideal depth of a joint should be a quarter of the thickness of the concrete.

Experts will recommend concrete thickness to 4 inches but others will go for 5 inches as longer and wider driveways are now more common in modern households. A solid ground will help but having the concrete reinforced with steel is always a good choice. Steel reinforcement does not necessarily prevent crack occurrence but it helps in strengthening concrete which works like a skeletal system for the driveway.

Among the advantages of concrete driveways that make it popular for most home owners are its decorative feasibility enabling the home owner to tint the concrete into almost any color he wants to compliment an existing exterior design, its relatively easy allowance of snow elimination, less slipping, lasting color and texture, and less frequency of maintenance.