Are you patient enough to pave driveways?
August 22nd, 2007 by Allan Heydorn. Posted in Pavement RoundaboutPaving residential driveways is so different from paving roads and parking lots that we probably should come up with a different term for the work. Where roads (and some parking lots) are about volume, and commercial paving is about margin, driveway paving is about neatness, care, and cash flow.
Residential homeowners are picky, they want everything to be “just so,” and they value their patios, sidewalks, gardens, shrubs, and lawn - to say nothing of their houses - almost as if they own them.
If you haven’t already had the chance to flip through the August/September issue of Pavement, check it out, especially if you’re a driveway paving contractor. Top Quality Paving’s John Ball uses more than 20 driveway-paving photos to offer tips and insights into how to do a great job for your justifiably finicky residential customers. And if that’s not enough for you there are a bunch more photos and insights online in our Equipment Gallery. And if even that’s not enough for you John will be presenting “Essentials of Parking Lot & Driveway Paving” at both National Pavement Expo West, Nov. 15-17, in Las Vegas and National Pavement Expo, Jan. 31 -Feb. 2 in Nashville. Look for a similar article on paving handwork in our October issue.
August 30th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I really enjoyed the photo series and description of the driveway installation under your Tips and Insights link, as well as those under Equipment Gallery. Good information; well presented. Plus, looks like the residential customer, finicky or not, has a very attractive new driveway.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
The only thing that was glaringly “wrong” was the caption of the photo of the paver tilted up and the remark about conveyors.
Of course gravity pavers don’t have conveyors and it should have been pointed out that it’s very important on a “tilt” gravity paver to use the tilt function very carefully to maintain an even “head” of asphalt in front of the screed (most conveyor models these days do that automatically but if the conveyors are manual it’s just as important.
Also on a tilt paver to use the cut off plates to help control the head if pushing a truck and they are “dumping hard”.
An even “head” of mix in front of the screed is most important especially with smaller “driveway class” pavers where the screed is more reactive to any variations no matter how small.
Otherwise a great article pointing out many of the little things that make the difference in a paved driveway and a great paved driveway.