SEALING THE DEAL ON MAINTAINING A GREAT DRIVEWAY
Focus on durability and care when building — or fixing up — a home’s parking space
How often do you think about your driveway? Probably not that much until you come home after a long day at work and all your son’s friends have taken up all the parking space. Not that I’m speaking from personal experience here.
Give it a little bit more thought. Driveways provide safe entrance for your family, friends or, in a crisis, emergency vehicles. After careful engineering, they are manufactured to evenly distribute the weight of any vehicles on the parking pad. Not bad for a pad of stone.
Summer will be upon us in a few months and that’s the best time of year for driveway maintenance. Why? In the heat, the pores in your materials will expand, letting it take in the sealant better. The summer heat will also allow the material to dry more quickly, which gets you using your driveway again that much more quickly.
If it’s time to bring in an expert to build or reseal your driveway, start your search now. Good contractors’ schedules for the season will fill up fast. Start your planning now, so you don’t have to put the project off for another year — especially if your driveway needs some care.
If you’ve got a guy showing up door-to-door offering good deals on repaving, immediately shut the door and close the blinds. Hire right — and hire smart.
DRIVEWAY MATERIALS
You have lots of options when it comes to your driveway. Think about durability and maintenance before you decide on esthetics. Make sure it’s the right choice that’s going to last — and not just the one that’ll look good.
HERE ARE YOUR OPTIONS:
Concrete: Concrete is tough — you can typically count on it to last 15 to 20 years, but possibly more depending on your climate. Be careful come wintertime: salt (a common de-icing agent) can eat away at your concrete driveway (and pathways), and without gaps allowing the salt to run off with the melting snow, it can sit there and cause damage. If cracks appear in the winter that aren’t properly repaired, water can get underneath, and heave the material. And that means a costly repair. I like to see a compressive strength of 39 megapascals (MPa) or greater to minimize cracks and shifting. Gravel: Gravel driveways are a pretty forgiving option when it comes to driveway material. Loose stones are laid over a layer of oil. They promote easy water drainage, and to maintain it, you’ll need to rake the stones to even out the surface. The type of gravel you choose will dictate its lifespan. A red stone driveway probably won’t last as long as something a little more durable. So choose carefully.
But make sure the shoe of your snowblower has been adjusted to account for the gravel. The last thing you need is a stone going through a neighbour’s window! Stone pavers: While stone pavers tend to be a very labourintensive option (and that brings the cost up), it offers its own set of unique benefits. In wet areas, they allow for better drainage — and if any individual stones are damaged, it’s a simple matter to replace them.
Pavers tend to sink with the freeze/thaw cycle or at points of concentrated loads. They look great, but be ready to give them some regular maintenance. Asphalt: When you drive through your neighbourhood, you’ll likely most commonly see asphalt driveways. And that’s for good reason. Asphalt is an inexpensive option — and with proper maintenance can last between 15 to 30 years. Like with concrete, if you don’t repair your cracks, it means an expensive fix, not a minor patch job!
A SLIPPERY SLOPE
Your driveway isn’t just to provide a place for you to store your car. It actually provides a line of defence for your home, protecting it against water damage. That is, if it has been done right. Your property needs to be properly graded all the way around; that way, when water hits (like during a rainstorm), the property is naturally sloped to move water away from your house, instead of allowing it to pool around your foundation. The slope doesn’t need to be major, a difference of five degrees should be enough. To put it another way, when you stand six feet (1.83 metres) from your foundation, the ground should be three inches (7.6 centimetres) lower.
There’s a pretty simple trick to determining if your driveway is properly sloped. I do it all the time — you may have even seen it in one of my shows. Take a tennis ball and place it at the top of your driveway. Does it roll away from your home? That’s good. If it rolls toward your home, well, guess which way the water’s going to go, too?
Watch Mike Holmes in his series, Holmes Makes It Right, on HGTV. For more information, visit makeitright.ca.