I’ve had 2 chinese menus and 4 landscaper ads tucked into my front door this week which means it’s officially springtime again! And it’s time for front yard repair. More to come next week on the actual plan I’ve got in mind for landscaping (DIY style, not by employing any of those companies who market to me by soliciting in my storm door). I tried to get some companies interested in doing asphalt work back in November, but (not surprisingly) it didn’t really work out. (Better yet, of the 5 companies I met with, no one even mailed me a quote, what the heck? Not ONE. I’m actually not contacting any of those guys this time around because I question their ability to follow through even to decline the job. Zing!)
So… let me talk about this driveway a little bit. It’s bad. It’s downright ugly.
And if you own a car (yeah, a normal coupe or economy or mid-size or hatchback car-car) you’re not going to be able to get in or out without leaving me with the entire undercarriage of your little buggy along the section of the driveway between the road and the sidewalk; there’s a major, unavoidable hump. It’s caught far too many bumpers and mufflers to be even “satisfactory” (and I’ve felt plenty guilty about each scrape and bruise too).
My crossover-style Jeep is good, although I’m probably destroying its alignment. Larger trucks and SUVs do fine. And, OK, if you want to deal with me being technical and mathmatical for just a second, if you line your car up almost totally parallel to the end of the driveway and squeeze your little car up at a sharp diagonal and rock the car back to a straight position in the driveway once you’re past the city sidewalk, you’ll probably get in without scratching, but imagine me trying to explain that to people. From my front porch. Shouting. In a snowstorm.
The too-wordy explaination for my crappy driveway is that it has needed major help since long before I bought the house; the previous owners excelled at quickie sealing and patching, and maybe that was the right fix at the time, but given weather and time, the ashphault dips, dives, curves, and looks very much like it was done patchwork-quilt-style. It’s also 3-cars wide, meaning at some point the owners sledged out the curb and widened the base of the driveway and eliminated some of the front yard (amounts to 250 sq. ft!). The City of Rochester has told me that was done “illegally” too, probably meaning that they were owed money to correct the curb instead of allowing it to be sledgehammered by the owners or whoever did the paving. In any case, I don’t want to be charged for someone’s error and yadda yadda yadda, some dude at the city hall thought he was doing me a favor by not ratting my little old driveway in to his superiors, so maybe I’m biding my time and maybe no one would ever know differently until they stumble upon this blog post <deep breath>…
The short story? My driveway blows and I’ve just told people to park on the street to save their precious vehicles.
Anyways, the time has come (the walrus said) to fix that driveway, so I’m in the process of finding qualified companies and obtaining quotes to get it fixed. The biggest change (since I’m planning to stick with asphault again to save some money) is that I’m taking it back down to a 2-car width size. I could probably fit 7 cars in my driveway as it is now (since it does go all the way back to the garage along the side of the house like shown in this next photo), so losing one (illegal) car space to have more grass in my front yard (yeah! 250 sq. ft’s worth!) is totally worth it. Car 7 can just stay on the street. Sorry Car 7.
As this quoting and planning gets underway, I have lots of questions for the companies. Since I had a fail-of-a-test run of quoting back before winter hit, I’m taking the approach to let them tell me the fix/price/details before I ask any of these questions (mostly so I can get and compare their professional opinions):
- Will it require a full tear out or just a seal and full topcoat?
- Is it already too thick?
- What’s it cost to remove the asphalt? Could I do it myself (rawr!)?
- Can the part that extends along the side of the house be re-sealed since it’s not as warped or as patchy?
- Can you do a base underneath the front steps that are being built, or does it have to be removed for the project? (Fact: Haven’t finished them yet because I didn’t want it to get too in the way of the sidewalk. It’s still an awesomely unsafe and unattractive platform from back when we started it at New Years.)
- Can you fix the grade from the road up to the city sidewalk?
- Can you do it tomorrow? (OK, not really.)
I started with Service Magic, and also called on a few companies that I had obtained referrals for. General consensus from those I’ve heard from is that now that it’s spring, everyone’s fricken busy and hard to schedule, so my own progress been going slower than I expected. Hopefully I’ll have made good progress by May 1.
And also — is there anything else that I should be asking when I meet with these companies?
13 Comments
I have nothing worthwhile to add (too tired to think straight) except to say that you are hilarious. I especially enjoyed “but imagine me trying to explain that to people. From my front porch. Shouting. In a snowstorm.”
Ha, thanks Cait. Tired from a long night of being bloggy? (I am too.)
Yep, too much blogging, blog reading, etc. Possibly followed by watching Criminal Minds, eating french fries, and going to bed way too late and forgetting to set the alarm clock.
We got an estimate to completely redo our drive for $2100 (pull out and removal of debris included).
Out guy told us that once he lays the gravel and whatnot, it takes 2 months for it to settle properly. Then he will come to tar it.
This probably doesn’t help, but something I thought I’d add. :D
Thank you for sharing this info! It’s definitely helpful to know comps and the variances in processes that these companies recommend.
And, damn, I wish the first quote I got was as low as that. The guy admitted to me that the job was too small for his company and he could find me a contractor who was a better fit at a better price…
BTW – I posted about our driveway today. I hate concrete right now – you have no idea.
Wow! Sounds like quite the ordeal with the City! Geez… don’t you ever wonder “What in the heck were the previous homeowners thinking???” I know I do about my house!
Hey Emily,
I’m working on the same thing right now but just a smaller scale (http://thewhitebungalow.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-i-spent-my-last-couple-of-weekends.html).
I had an 8′ x 12′ section of old driveway in my front yard that I ripped up by renting a jackhammer from Lowe’s. Then yesterday I had a bunch of topsoil delivered and hopefully by next week I’ll be laying grass seed down and attempting to fill the area in with grass! It sounds good on paper, but only time will tell.
Good luck to ya!
Oh, I may lots of questions for you. Going to read your post now. Very exciting – I had been curious about how difficult it would be to do ourselves!
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I rented a 60 lbs. demolition hammer from Lowe’s and went to town. The hammer certainly has some power to it & does take a toll on your body so you may want to sweet talk Pete into helping out (which from the look of it doesn’t look like it’ll take much convincing). But at the end of the day it’s certainly a rewarding feeling to see a pile of crushed concrete where a nasty partial driveway used to be.
What did you do with the concrete slabs? I was thinking for the asphalt removal it would be worth buying one of those Waste Management Bagster on-the-spot dumpster things. Thanks for the insight into the project!
I almost bought one of those Bagsters but noticed it would cost about $90 for them to pick it up. Instead I was fortunate enough to use my dumpster at work and made two trips with a couple trash bins full each trip. The Bagster might be your best bet if you don’t have anywhere else to take it.
Mmmhmm… work dumpsters. Or local apartment complex dumpsters are generally easy to use too. Not that I’ve ever acted like I was on a secret mission late in the night to dump loads of dirty carpeting into one of them in the back alley of the complex. Thanks for the remind. I was only thinking Bagster because I loved actually having a physical dumpster onsite, and if it were right beside me in the driveway where I was doing demo, it would also be easy for Waste Management to swing through and pick it up.