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susanchoe1221

gap between driveway and road

last year

Hello!
I recently had a belgian block apron installed on my driveway because the loose gravel was always washing away and becoming muddy. The masonry is great but they neglected to tell me about the gap that would remain between the last row of bricks and the road. They cemented it up but it is steep so they filled it in with sand, dirt and gravel and it looks worse than before and they quoted me $1000 to asphalt it!! I’m hoping someone here might have good ideas for an alternative solution?? Some photos of how it currently looks are attached along with a photo of the cement. Thank u!!

Comments (9)

  • last year

    I don't know where you live, but here....roads are a town/city issue. You can't "fix" a portion of road it's not your property. I'd go talk to your town/city DPW.

  • last year

    Yikes! I’d definitely clean up and dispose of the sand, rocks, and dirt. Do you use the driveway for cars ? I’d worry the front of the bricks would disintegrate. I hate when expensive projects don’t turn out correctly. I don’t see anyway laying bricks could meet the street level perfectly though. Maybe a row of bricks could be removed and a concrete transition could be added. I sure think they should have pointed this out beforehand.

  • last year

    It looks as though the street is near due for resurfacing. I would make inquiries with the street department as to when/ if resurfacing is scheduled.

    You could tidy it up with crushed limestone in the interim. Perhaps grind the leading edge off the pavers.

  • last year

    ^^^^^, and when they surface the road it will raise the level some so the dip will be less pronounced or even go away.

  • last year

    Be the squeaky wheel with your town about resurfacing the road. It took us 30 YEARS to get our town to redo our road and cul-de-sac. The original developers defaulted on the road bond and never finalized the road. We had a horrible low point at the end of our driveway and water accumulated in a huge "pond" that didn't drain and in the winter it froze to an ice skating rink. We kept after the DPW and Board of Selectmen with pictures and letters and FINALLY got the road redone.

    Your pavers look beautiful, at least!

  • last year

    There's more than one option that costs around $1k that look better than asphalt. If you are into jackhammers,pick axes,shovels and pouring concrete I can help you out. If you are looking for someone to tell you so you can tell workers,you are dreaming.

  • last year

    Asphalt paved streets don't have clean edges like a concrete roadway does. Concrete is poured into forms. Asphalt roadways are built up with gravel & base, rolled and compacted in the process and then asphalt is laid & rolled some more. Makes for a ragged and crumbly edge that you realize when you try digging there. That makes perimeter transitions difficult when there is no concrete curb and gutter. IMO, the installers did a very neat job, especially there on the off street gravel parking strip.

  • last year

    A few things.

    - The belgian pavers should not be mortared with only a stone base under them. Only if they had a concrete slab under them should you mortar, but still not a good idea in any freeze/thaw climate. That apron will move with weather and the mortar will pop if not from vehicular weight on that front edge.

    - The stone for the driveway looks too large, it is displacing too much. A decomposed granite is what you want and probably what you were looking to do, and should be readily available in CT.

    - Typically you would sawcut 12" of the street asphalt, lay your apron flush, then repave the 12" (with street permit which aprons often require). The pictures look taken at different stages so I can't tell here if it's just dirt, they layed some concrete, or layed cold patch and threw in some driveway aggregate to build it up more. The street looks to have it's own problems though, and appears to be a private drive because your fence is right up to it. Having your grade along the fence be below it, and a shallow ditch/runoff area will help reduce not only the asphalt deteriorating, but snowplowing in winter.