Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Yesterday, I drove over to Home Depot to get two more 5-gallon buckets of driveway sealer and one more bucket of driveway crack filler. After I got sidetracked at the airport (which I wrote about in the previous post), I came back to finish up the driveway.
The only thing I did differently this time was to clean the driveway, fix all the cracks and then seal the driveway immediately afterward. The crack filler instructions say that it should dry for 24 hours, but I have a feeling it will dry just fine.
I will tell you that there is some serious grip with the driveway sealer. I just walked up the the road to the the garbage can and I almost stubbed my toe a bunch of times.
I have to go back to Home Depot this afternoon to return a 5-gallon bucket of driveway sealer and one bucket of driveway crack filler. Overall, I used 30 gallons of sealer and two gallons of crack filler. That should be good for a few years and now it looks like we are driving on a brand new driveway.
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Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Like I mentioned yesterday, this morning’s task was to seal the lower portion of the driveway. I had twenty five gallons of Latex-ite Driveway Re-surfacer on hand and was hoping that was enough. I think I read that each five gallon bucket does around 300 square feet, which isn’t much.
Ok, here is how it went. I started off at about 11:30AM and began by cleaning the entire working area with my spankin’ new pressure washer. If I didn’t have this pressure washer, I would’ve wished that I did. It did a great job.
Driveway before cleaning with pressure washer
In the photo above, you can see the dry driveway. I didn’t spray it yet and you can see the dirt on it towards the end. The reason that I cleaned the driveway is pretty obvious…the get the surface clean so the sealer really sticks to it.
Driveway after cleaning with pressure washer
This is the cleaned driveway. Lots of dirt, sticks and acorns came off it.
Driveway sealed with five gallons of sealer
My brother was right. Keeping the driveway wet is better than not. The moisture really helps keep the squeegee spreading smoothly. Also, the sealer goes much further. The photo above is after I spread the first five gallons. It did about half the area I wanted to do.
This is a photo of the driveway after I spread ten gallons of sealer on it. You can see that I didn’t get as much covered as the first five gallons gave me. Also, when the driveway is dry, I noticed that the sealer doesn’t get down into the pits of the blacktop. For that to happen, I had to go over it a few times, using up more sealer.
Driveway after fifteen gallons of sealer
The last five gallons of sealer got me the least. It covered the smallest area because the area was dry and cool. The coolness didn’t let the sealer “run” like the others. The good news is that I only used fifteen gallons of sealer for the lower portion of the driveway. That means that I have ten gallons left and I can estimate that I need about another ten gallons.
Tonight, I am going to clean any cracks in the upper driveway and seal them up with the crack sealer. If I run out, I can pick some up when I am buying the rest of the driveway sealer.
By the way, I did this project bare footed. I recommend wearing old sneakers because the blacktop gets hot and the sealer splashes naked feet.
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Saturday, August 16th, 2008
Eventually, all blacktop will crack. It doesn’t matter how good of a job the pavement people did when they came to install that beautiful patch of blackness over what once was a nice lawn. It will crack.
“So what, Jay. So my driveway has a few cracks in it. Why should I care?” you say. Well, let me just tell you this…it isn’t going to get any better. Especially if you live where there is a freeze/thaw cycle.
What happens is this; you get a few cracks in your driveway, from people driving on the edge of the pavement, the blacktop shifting, something heavy on the driveway, tree roots rearing their ugly heads or a bunch of other things. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters now is that there is a crack, or a bunch of cracks in your once very pretty driveway. Now that the crack is there, water is most definitely going to find its way in it. In the Summer, this doesn’t matter so much. When it matters most is in the Winter. In the Winter, the water finds its way into the crack and then freezes. When the water freezes, it expands. Do you see where I am going here? Your small cracks get a lot bigger, fast.
“Yeah, whatever Jay. I’ll fix it one day.” Hey, do you know how much a new driveway costs? Well, the longer it is and the more privacy you have, the more you are going to shell out for a whole new deal. Thousands and thousands and thousands. In my opinion, it’s a heck of a lot better to maintain your driveway instead of paying for a new one, as long as you can.
There are a few cracks in the driveway here. There is one area that needed a bag or two of blacktop, but mostly, these are easy to patch blacktop cracks. It’s easy and actually fun to fix them. Here is what I did today.
Latex-ite driveway re-surfacer
I went to Home Depot and I bought a few things. First, I bought some Latex-ite Driveway Re-surfacer. The bucket says this stuff is good for eight years. I don’t believe that. From what I have been reading, it’s best to seal your driveway every two to four years. I also bought a squeegee to spread the driveway sealer out with.
Then, I bought some Latex-ite Trowel Patch driveway crack filler. This is supposed to fill cracks up to a quarter inch. I like to push it, because some of the cracks here are more than that. Mostly though, I think this stuff will do the trick. The crack filler comes in a “loose cement” consistency and spreads like butter. It hardens like rubberized cement. I have to say, it’s pretty cool.
Below is a nice example of a crack that I had to fill in today. It wasn’t too wide and was about four feet long. I would say this is a prime example of what you might expect to see in your own driveway.
First, I completely cleaned the cracks with a garden hose. I sprayed the stream right in there and got all the gunk out.
After that, I got my trowel and started spreading. I made sure to get the crack filler all the way down in the crack. It didn’t want it just hanging out near the top.
The crack filler spreads on brown, but when it dries, it turns black. Also, if the crack is wide, the filler may shrink when it’s dried, requiring another coat.
The company recommends that you wait at least twenty four hours before you drive on it, do a peel out on it or dance on it. Longer if it’s cooler outside. I guess the hotter it is, the faster the crack sealer cures.
Tomorrow morning, I am going to pressure wash the lower portion of the driveway and seal it. I was told that if you keep the driveway wet when you are sealing it, the sealer goes further. We shall see.
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Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
One of the first things I noticed while looking at this house when we were “In the market” was the lousy shape of the basement. I heard that there was a little moisture on the floor (of which I will discuss the remedy to later), was informed by the home inspector that the insulation fitted in between the floor (upstairs) joists was installed up side down (which I already fixed) and some of the mortar joints needed to be finished. But one thing that really stood out to me was noticed when I was upstairs. In the living room and along the hallway that runs the length of the house, there seemed to be a slight dip. Now, this really annoys me, not because I am a little on the anal side when it comes to this stuff, but because when I was renting an apartment a few years back, I actually had to use a rope tied from my rolling chair to the corner leg of my desk to stop the chair from rolling to the center of the room when I was sitting on it. That is how crooked the floor was. After a year of that, you can understand why I was so angered by this little dip. I had to find out what was causing this.
I went downstairs and inspected the entire foundation. No cracks. It looked fine. I went to Home Depot and bought one of those laser line tools. I mounted the laser light on one side of the girder beam and ran it down the entire length…AH HA! The center of the beam towards the middle of the house was about an inch lower than the ends at the foundation. Looks like the original lally columns and footings settled a bit over time. Well, looks like I found my first project.
I was also a little concerned about the cement block column (all the way to the left of the picture above). It was installed on a tilt. So that, along with two settled lally column footings, gave me a sense of urgency. I was in the mood for a challenge anyway. I decided to put in three additional footings and columns, this time to maximum code compliance. I would put one column in between each of the existing columns.
I dug the first hole closest to the foundation wall. I dug it about one and a half feet deep. Then, I constructed a form from cut 2″x10″s so it would create a footing of two feet wide by one foot high. Then, I hung a plum line from the girder beam just to make sure the form was exactly centered under the beam. I measured this about 10 times. I also made sure the form was perfectly level.
Once again, I measured the actual form to make sure I cut everything correctly. I kept thinking that one day the building inspector was going to show up with a micrometer and inspect everything I did. I actually called the building department and they told me that this did not need to be inspected since I was adding in between the existing footings, and they met compliance back when the house was built.
Building code calls for the footing to be one foot deep by two feet wide. Since I made a form from 2″x10″s, I needed to keep it about 2-3 inches off the ground. I accomplished this by propping the form up on some rocks that I dug up. Then, I measured to make sure I was perfect (again). You really need to do this a lot, it keeps shifting.
When everything was absolutely perfect, I mixed a few bags of Quikrete Concrete Mix in my wheelbarrow. The form took a total of 7 bags. I smoothed it out real nice.
I waited a day for it to set and then popped off the form.
Now that is what I call footing. Let that sucker try to settle. One thing that I forgot to mention was that I sprayed water from my hose into the empty hole before I put the form in, then I let it dry. That let made sure the dirt was nice and compact. I also put in a few pieces of rebar for added strength. You don’t need to do that for a footing this small, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
The cement calls for a cure time of 7 days for a 2500psi compressive strength and a 28 cure time for the full 4000psi compressive strength. I have heard that concrete never stops curing. You also need to make sure the concrete stays moist to cure correctly. I am sure we all have seen a sidewalk that hasn’t cured properly…chipping and flaking to expose the gravel. To follow the instructions, I filled in around the footing, wet the top of it and layed some plastic over it. I wet the top every day for 7 days.
I followed these same exact steps for the next two footings. The following photo is of the final completed footing.
For the last column, I decided to try my hand at building a cement block wall. There was room and how else is a new homeowner supposed to get experience? Those temporary columns on the right came out of there after I was done…they stayed on hold for a future project.
Believe it or not, this wall is perfectly level in every direction. I filled the last two blocks in solid because that is where I put the weight of the girder beam.
After all the concrete in the footings was cured properly, I went to a local lumberyard, purchased three lally columns and had them cut to my measurements. These are the familiar maroon ones filled with concrete. I am not sure of the weight each one can support, but I have a feeling it is more than enough. I then purchased a 20 ton bottle jack and jacked up the area next to each existing column. When there was enough clearance from the plate on the top of the each column and the bottom of the girder beam, I slid in a quarter inch thick 6″x6″ square steel plate. I did this for each existing column as a spacer. I read somewhere that you should only jack up a house one eighth of an inch per day so the sheetrock upstairs won’t crack. I did a quarter inch per day because I was going to tackle the upstairs sheetrock later anyway. After about a week, and enough spacers to make the girder beam perfectly straight, as indicated by my laser, I jacked up the girder beam and put in each new lally column on each new footing. Each one had a great tight fit.
If you are planning a project like this, I really suggest you have a professional do it. You can get quite freaked out by all the squeaking that the wood does when it is jacked up.
In the photo below, you can see all of the lally columns in a row…the originals and the new ones. What a project! No more dip in the floor upstairs…nice and level. Just wait until I am done digging out the entire basement. Almost there…
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