My driveway project

My driveway project officially started on June 30th with me breaking the sidewalk so I could trench and install an under-the-sidewalk drain for the gutter with a "pop-up" end cap. Since that part of the sidewalk was already cracked, I dug it out a bit and the sledgehammer did the rest!

Next, I had to dig the actual trench: 15 feet long and about a foot and a half deep with a slight slope. Luckily, I did not damage the buried sprinkler piping and I was able to trench underneath the plastic edging.

Then I had to hurry & bury the pipe then next day before the contractor came at about 10am on Wednesday, July 1st! I packed some paver base around the part of the pipe directly under the sidewalk.

While the contractor was doing my driveway, I was busy finishing the drainage solution. At the "elbow" in the photo below, there is really a "T" with one end pointing downward into the river rock (that goes down about 3 feet) and the other end pointing up and capped off with the "pop-up". The "T" allows the pipe to completely drain thus preventing the potential for the pipe to freeze up. Also, on the recommendation of my friend Kip, I decided to build in a threaded access, so I could easily replace the upper half of the pipe in case the pop-up became damaged, say for example due to a wayward aerator or something like that (thanks for the tip Kip!). Although you can't see it in the photo, there really is a threaded connection where the gap is showing.

And here's the end cap installed. Another nice feature of the threaded junction, is you have some adjustability in the height of the pop-up. It's not a lot, but every bit helps sometimes!

Ugh! Here's a photo of the old asphalt driveway - look how it sunk & crumbled - you can see the skid marks from my motorcycle, where I had to get enough speed to make it into the garage, but then had to immediately hit the binders so I didn't put the thing through the back of the garage! Scary!

Here's the crew doing the "tearout" of the old driveway & sidewalk around 1pm Wednesday, July 1st....

And here they are finished (for the day) by 7:45 pm! But we can't walk on it until the next day! (Thursday).
Nice & even with the garage floor - no more "4 wheeling" to get the vehicles into the garage!
They re-did the incredible sinking stoop-step. This time, they drilled re-bars right into the existing step to keep everything together.

We eliminated the 45 degree corners and replaced them with a swooping curve in the sidewalk.
Here's the view from the street.

Unfortunately, I do not have any of the final pictures yet from Thursday's work where they removed the forms, put in the dry-cut reliefs and sealed the sidewalk & driveway because I was busy tring to finish up some more of my own projects. We can now walk, ride bikes, skateboards, scooters, powerwings, ripsticks and so forth, but we cannot drive on it for 7-10 days. I plan on holding out for the full 10 days which is on or about Saturday, July 11th. Well, that's it for now - I'll try & get a few pix of the completed project soon. Blog to you later!