You are in the process of launching a beautiful landscaping project, you can already imagine the final result: here you are between 2 freshly watered shrubs, a paved driveway well traced to your newly paved garage entrance with the smell of hot asphalt!
Excavation
For the reconstruction of the pavement of your entrance, following the demolition of the existing pavement, it is recommended to make an excavation to replace the base layer of your pavement (called the infrastructure layer). The depth of the excavation depends on the type of soil you have. We recognize a bad layer of infrastructure when for example with bad weed on the surface, cracks, ripples, potholes. In these cases, the infrastructure layer may have reshaped and mixed with time: it must be replaced by a floor with a better bearing capacity, especially with a higher gravel content. To give you an idea, the depth of excavation can vary between 12 and 24 inches.
Backfill and compaction
The embankment (your future new infrastructure layer), is wet before and during the installation because it needs a certain amount of water to maximize the quality of the compaction. It is important to compact layer by layer, knowing that a layer must has a maximum thickness of 12 inches. This step is very important because if the soil is poorly compacted, the consequences will be immediate after the first winter: if a soil is not well compacted, it means that there is a lot of space between the grains of sand or stone who composes it. This space will probably be exploited by water which causes the weakening of the soil.
Billdr’s tips
- If you own a new home, you must wait at least 1 year before paving the entrance to your home, regardless of the type of paving: asphalt, concrete, pavers. During the construction of a new house, the floor has probably been reworked, which results in movements of the latter with the freeze and thaw cycles.
- The addition of a geotextile membrane in the bottom of your excavation, just before backfilling, is more than recommended! Indeed, for only a cut of one hundred dollars more, the membrane (which makes a kind of tissue) can confine the new infrastructure to prevent it from mixing with the underlying soil! With time, it is this mixture that causes weed growth on the surface of your pavement!
