If you are going to install a concrete driveway you have to make sure that you put in expansion joints. These are necessary because concrete expands and contracts depending on the temperature. If your driveway was one big slab it would crack, the expansion joints prevent this from happening by giving the concrete room to expand. Installing expansion joints is fairly easy if you know what you are doing and have the right tools.
The first thing that you have to do in order to install expansion joints in your concrete driveway is to determine where they are needed.
As a general rule you are going to want to limit each section of concrete to being no bigger than a 4 foot by six foot slab. This however requires a lot of expansion joints and most people think that it destroys the look of the driveway. You can get around this problem by using steel grids to strengthen the concrete which means that you can have bigger sections. If you do this your best bet is to put one expansion joint down the center and then have them going horizontally every six to eight feet.
It is also important to realize that how closely you need to space your expansion joints will depend on the concrete that you are using.
High quality concrete is much stronger than low quality concrete and it does not need as many expansion joints. It is therefore a good idea to ask your concrete supplier how many expansion joints they recommend for their product.
When it comes time to actually install the expansion joints there are basically two options that you can use. The first is to put wooden slats in between each section of concrete. These slats will then need to be removed once the concrete is hard enough that it will not flow in and fill the slats.
In order to make sure that you can get the slats out you will need to spray them with a releasing agent that keeps the concrete from sticking to them. This approach makes it easier to ensure that your expansion joints are straight but it does take more time because of all the prep work that is involved. It also offers the disadvantage of requiring quite a bit of wood which adds to the expense of your driveway.
The other option that you have for putting in expansion joints is to simply use your trowel while you are smoothing the surface.
To do this as soon as you have poured the concrete and smoothed the surface you will want to take your trowel and make the joints. The big issue that you will have here is making sure that they are straight, it is usually best to run a piece of string from on side of the driveway to the other attached to wooden spikes along the edge of the driveway that you can follow to stay in a straight line. The other big thing is to make sure that you get your joints to the right depth, they should be a quarter of the thickness of the slab. So if you have a four inch slab you need your expansion joints to go down 1 inch.
Showing posts with label driveway costs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driveway costs. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Concrete Driveway Costs: Estimating the Cost of Your New Driveway
If you are going to build a driveway you are going to have to decide what it will be built of. There are actually several options in this regard but for most people it comes down to a choice between concrete and asphalt. Since price is going to a major factor you will want to know how to estimate the price of each type of driveway. This article will explain how to determine the cost of a concrete driveway. 
The biggest thing that you are going to have to do to estimate the cost of a new driveway is to determine how much concrete you are going to need; it is by far the biggest cost when it comes to building your driveway. This is fairly easy to do all you have to do is figure out how many square feet your driveway is. This is pretty basic math in most cases but if you do have an oddly shaped driveway an estimate will be probably be good enough for your purposes.
You are also going to have to determine just how thick you need your driveway to be. The standard for concrete driveways is four inches but if you are going to be parking heavy vehicles like trucks or RVs on your driveway you will need to go with six inches. From there the math is pretty simple; just multiply the square footage of your driveway by the thickness in feet. This will tell you how many cubic feet of concrete you need. Since concrete is normally priced by the cubic yard you will want to divide that number by twenty seven.
As an example if we were building a large driveway that took up 2000 square feet and was four inches thick we would multiply 2000 by a third of a foot to give us 667 which we then divide by 27 to get 25 cubic yards of concrete approximately. Concrete will run you about a hundred dollars a yard depending on where you live so you would estimate that it would cost about $2500 dollars for the concrete.
Of course there is more to building a concrete driveway than just the cost of concrete; you also have to factor in the cost of sand. The concrete will need to be poured on a layer of three inches of sand. You can figure out the amount of sand you will need in cubic yards the same way that you figured out the amount of concrete. Which in this case works out to be 18.5 cubic yards. Sand goes for about fifteen dollars a cubic yard so you would expect to pay about two hundred seventy five dollars. In addition you will need to factor in the cost of two by fours that will be used as forms as well as the stakes to hold them in place, figure on a couple of hundred dollars for these. It will also run you a couple of hundred dollars each to have the cement and sand delivered if you are not going to pick it up yourself.
So far in our estimate we have assumed that you will be building the driveway yourself in its entirety. That means building the forms, mixing the cement and pouring it. If you are going to pay somebody else to do this you will want to estimate about a dollar per square foot, in our case about two thousand dollars. You can of course do part of the work yourself, for example build the forms and then have somebody else pour the concrete. The way this affects the price is something that you will have to work out with the company you use for this purpose.
So far we have estimated that the cost of a concrete driveway that it two thousand square feet and four inches thick will come to about $3200 if we do the work ourselves and $5200 if we hire somebody else to do it. However this is only part of the story. Before we can even start to pour concrete we have to build a base, this will need to be excavated to a depth of eight to twenty four inches depending on how cold it is where you live. You will then need to put gravel on top and have it compacted. This can cost anywhere from one thousand to five thousand dollars depending on the depth and if any power lines or pipes have to be moved.
While you are obviously going to want to factor in the cost of the prep work that is required to build a concrete driveway it is also important to keep in mind that these costs would also apply for an asphalt driveway, therefore they are not going to be a factor in determining which type of driveway you should choose.
The biggest thing that you are going to have to do to estimate the cost of a new driveway is to determine how much concrete you are going to need; it is by far the biggest cost when it comes to building your driveway. This is fairly easy to do all you have to do is figure out how many square feet your driveway is. This is pretty basic math in most cases but if you do have an oddly shaped driveway an estimate will be probably be good enough for your purposes.
You are also going to have to determine just how thick you need your driveway to be. The standard for concrete driveways is four inches but if you are going to be parking heavy vehicles like trucks or RVs on your driveway you will need to go with six inches. From there the math is pretty simple; just multiply the square footage of your driveway by the thickness in feet. This will tell you how many cubic feet of concrete you need. Since concrete is normally priced by the cubic yard you will want to divide that number by twenty seven.
As an example if we were building a large driveway that took up 2000 square feet and was four inches thick we would multiply 2000 by a third of a foot to give us 667 which we then divide by 27 to get 25 cubic yards of concrete approximately. Concrete will run you about a hundred dollars a yard depending on where you live so you would estimate that it would cost about $2500 dollars for the concrete.
Of course there is more to building a concrete driveway than just the cost of concrete; you also have to factor in the cost of sand. The concrete will need to be poured on a layer of three inches of sand. You can figure out the amount of sand you will need in cubic yards the same way that you figured out the amount of concrete. Which in this case works out to be 18.5 cubic yards. Sand goes for about fifteen dollars a cubic yard so you would expect to pay about two hundred seventy five dollars. In addition you will need to factor in the cost of two by fours that will be used as forms as well as the stakes to hold them in place, figure on a couple of hundred dollars for these. It will also run you a couple of hundred dollars each to have the cement and sand delivered if you are not going to pick it up yourself.
So far in our estimate we have assumed that you will be building the driveway yourself in its entirety. That means building the forms, mixing the cement and pouring it. If you are going to pay somebody else to do this you will want to estimate about a dollar per square foot, in our case about two thousand dollars. You can of course do part of the work yourself, for example build the forms and then have somebody else pour the concrete. The way this affects the price is something that you will have to work out with the company you use for this purpose.
So far we have estimated that the cost of a concrete driveway that it two thousand square feet and four inches thick will come to about $3200 if we do the work ourselves and $5200 if we hire somebody else to do it. However this is only part of the story. Before we can even start to pour concrete we have to build a base, this will need to be excavated to a depth of eight to twenty four inches depending on how cold it is where you live. You will then need to put gravel on top and have it compacted. This can cost anywhere from one thousand to five thousand dollars depending on the depth and if any power lines or pipes have to be moved.
While you are obviously going to want to factor in the cost of the prep work that is required to build a concrete driveway it is also important to keep in mind that these costs would also apply for an asphalt driveway, therefore they are not going to be a factor in determining which type of driveway you should choose.
Asphalt Driveway Costs: How to Estimate Construction Costs
A driveway can really add to the value of your home, not to mention provide you with a place to park your car. There are several different materials that can be used to build a driveway so you are going to need to be able to determine which is best for your needs. One of the factors that you will have to consider is cost. Therefore you are going to want to know how to estimate the cost of an asphalt driveway. 
The first thing that you are going to have to do in order to estimate the cost of an asphalt driveway is to determine just how big your driveway is going to be. This is fairly easy to do in most cases since they are usually fairly rectangular. Even if your driveway does have a bit of an odd shape you should not find it to be too difficult to determine the square footage for your driveway. Once you have the square footage you will want to divide that number by nine in order to determine the square yardage which is what is used in the formula for estimating how much asphalt you will use.
The next thing that you are going to have to do is to determine how thick your driveway will need to be. The standard for an asphalt driveway is three inches. This normally consists of two inches of base pavement with a one inch wearing layer on top of that. If you are replacing an existing driveway you can probably just replace the wearing layer so you would base your estimates on a one inch thickness, for new construction you will need three inches.
Asphalt is sold by the ton and there is a formula for determining how many tons you will need for your driveway. The formula is the square yardage times the constant 0.057 multiplied by the depth of pavement in inches. Therefore if you had a driveway that was 300 square yards and three inches thick you would come up with a requirement for 51 tons of asphalt. The price of asphalt will vary depending on a number of factors, particularly the price of oil, so you will want to check the current price. If we assume it goes for $150 a ton which is about average the cost of paving your asphalt driveway would come to $7500.
It is important to keep in mind that this is just the cost of paving the driveway; you will also have to have prep work done before hand. In most cases you will need to excavate eight to twenty four inches depending on the climate where you live, the colder it is the deeper you will have to go. You will then need to fill that excavation with gravel and have it compacted, this is necessary to ensure proper drainage. The cost of all of the prep work will run you at least another two to three thousand dollars, even more if gas or plumbing lines have to be moved.
While you are going to want to keep the cost of the prep work in mind when you are planning your budget it is not really a factor when it comes to deciding on the type of driveway that you will have. The same prep work will be required regardless of what you build your driveway out of. You want to make sure that you don’t skimp on the base of your driveway; if it is not well built the whole thing will be poorly constructed.
The cost of an asphalt driveway is pretty steep; there is no getting around that. However when you look at the cost of a concrete driveway you will find that asphalt does have a lower price. That being said you should not base the decision on the best type of driveway solely on cost; there are other factors that have to be considered.
The first thing that you are going to have to do in order to estimate the cost of an asphalt driveway is to determine just how big your driveway is going to be. This is fairly easy to do in most cases since they are usually fairly rectangular. Even if your driveway does have a bit of an odd shape you should not find it to be too difficult to determine the square footage for your driveway. Once you have the square footage you will want to divide that number by nine in order to determine the square yardage which is what is used in the formula for estimating how much asphalt you will use.
The next thing that you are going to have to do is to determine how thick your driveway will need to be. The standard for an asphalt driveway is three inches. This normally consists of two inches of base pavement with a one inch wearing layer on top of that. If you are replacing an existing driveway you can probably just replace the wearing layer so you would base your estimates on a one inch thickness, for new construction you will need three inches.
Asphalt is sold by the ton and there is a formula for determining how many tons you will need for your driveway. The formula is the square yardage times the constant 0.057 multiplied by the depth of pavement in inches. Therefore if you had a driveway that was 300 square yards and three inches thick you would come up with a requirement for 51 tons of asphalt. The price of asphalt will vary depending on a number of factors, particularly the price of oil, so you will want to check the current price. If we assume it goes for $150 a ton which is about average the cost of paving your asphalt driveway would come to $7500.
It is important to keep in mind that this is just the cost of paving the driveway; you will also have to have prep work done before hand. In most cases you will need to excavate eight to twenty four inches depending on the climate where you live, the colder it is the deeper you will have to go. You will then need to fill that excavation with gravel and have it compacted, this is necessary to ensure proper drainage. The cost of all of the prep work will run you at least another two to three thousand dollars, even more if gas or plumbing lines have to be moved.
While you are going to want to keep the cost of the prep work in mind when you are planning your budget it is not really a factor when it comes to deciding on the type of driveway that you will have. The same prep work will be required regardless of what you build your driveway out of. You want to make sure that you don’t skimp on the base of your driveway; if it is not well built the whole thing will be poorly constructed.
The cost of an asphalt driveway is pretty steep; there is no getting around that. However when you look at the cost of a concrete driveway you will find that asphalt does have a lower price. That being said you should not base the decision on the best type of driveway solely on cost; there are other factors that have to be considered.
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