4" Concrete Driveway Repair
4" Concrete Driveway Repair
(OP)
Hey guys. I have a few questions about repairing my 3/8"(pea gravel)washed aggregate, 4" thick concrete driveway. Background info: I have two sections that are divided by a 1"x4" wooden expansion joint that I will be removing and replacing. The cause of the concrete failure is unknown as of now. There was some cracking visible and a noticeable depression (initial failure centered around expansion joint)when I moved in 2 yrs ago. My best guess would be water infiltration via the expansion joint, then a heavy vehicle (moving co. truck...) causing the initial failure, followed by years of traffic exacerbating the problem. I will investigate the subgrade and slab thickness during demolition, until then the cause of the failure is not my concern. I am performing the work myself to drastically cut job cost and while I do wish to construct a durable driveway, "overbuild" will be kept to a minimum. My questions:
1. Assuming a soft subgrade exists, to what depth should unsuitable material be removed and replaced. I will backfill soft areas with a red clay gravel.
2. Depth of granular material below slab? I am using crushed limestone.
3. Is resteel necessary. No resteel in existing slab. Area of failure is very small, relative to total driveway area.
4. PCF of uncompacted 1" minus limestone and PCF of cured concrete with pea gravel agg.
-I have a low max haul weight, due to small trailers. Approximately 1700 lbs of material per trip.
Any help would be much appreciated? Thanks
1. Assuming a soft subgrade exists, to what depth should unsuitable material be removed and replaced. I will backfill soft areas with a red clay gravel.
2. Depth of granular material below slab? I am using crushed limestone.
3. Is resteel necessary. No resteel in existing slab. Area of failure is very small, relative to total driveway area.
4. PCF of uncompacted 1" minus limestone and PCF of cured concrete with pea gravel agg.
-I have a low max haul weight, due to small trailers. Approximately 1700 lbs of material per trip.
Any help would be much appreciated? Thanks
RE: 4" Concrete Driveway Repair
RE: 4" Concrete Driveway Repair
Any recommendations on performing the demo?
Another question I have, what are your thoughts on creating what would essentially be a Construction joint to reduce the size of the demo. To elaborate, I'm dealing with two adjacent sections of concrete separated by an expansion joint, with two sections above and below.(6 total sections make up the driveway, 2 at the top, 2 in the middle, 2 at the bottom). All sections are approximately the same size. With the failed area contained in the upper half of the middle sections. Would removing only half of the section be a solution worth looking into. Generally speaking, I would install smooth dowels in the lower half of the section, placing them on 12" centers (I'm guessing on the spacing). I'm not sure if it would be aesthetically pleasing-I know it wouldn't initially, but I was thinking it would be less noticeable as the fresh concrete aged. It would not be a cost saving measure, more of a reduction in back breaking labor during the demo.
RE: 4" Concrete Driveway Repair
http://www.mid.org/isc/iscd-3-misc.pdf
In my experience the problems with small jobs like this is not expansion but shrinkage.
The question I might ask is why did one area fail? Was it a souped up job at the end of the load left over from another site?
RE: 4" Concrete Driveway Repair
Your thickness is too low. That could be one reason for the initial failure. I would go to a thickness of 6".
Next, you are using a high shrinkage mix. A 4000 psi pea gravel mix requires a lot of cement and correspondingly, has a lot of shrinkage. Use a mix design with a larger aggregate. You can get 4000 psi mixes with a 1" nominal coarse aggregate size. This will have lower shrinkage than a pea gravel mix.
OG is right...you will have more shrinkage than expansion. Don't worry about expansion. Cut control joints every 10 to 12 feet each way and make sure the divided areas are almost square....with a maximum aspect ratio of 1.2 to 1. (12 feet in one direction, 10 feet in the other). Cut the joints the same day as the concrete placement. If you wait until the next day, very fine shrinkage cracks will have likely already developed, so you'll get cracks in locations other than the control joints. When you cut the control joints, cut them to a depth of 25 percent of the concrete thickness. This will give you 75 percent for aggregate interlock and some load transfer across the joint. I also would not use dowels, since those require a bit more expertise to install properly than you will likely have on hand.
For the demo, go ahead and rent a concrete saw. You can rent a wet saw for a week for about $150. You can use that to pre-saw the slabs and then break them up with a sledge hammer into pieces you can handle. The added benefit is that you'll have a wet saw available when you place the new concrete so you can sawcut the control joints quickly as they should be done. As soon as the concrete has set enough that the saw does not cause the coarse aggregate to ravel, you can cut your joints.
Yes, you can replace the section that is damaged. I would replace the whole section, not half of it. The concrete appearance will even out after a year or so.
RE: 4" Concrete Driveway Repair