Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The material

If you are planning to pave your driveway you must decide on the type traffic it might see.Passenger cars,light duty pickups,an occasional trailer with a lawn mower will only require a light duty paving job.  If you have 1-ton farm trucks and cattle trailers or car haulers rollin in and out you should opt for a medium duty material set-up and job. Anything larger than that should be medium to heavy and so-on. The material itself is designed for a controlled depth or weight-per-sq.yard. To keep from gettin to techy you can set these as standards; light duty asphalt topping-1.5 to 2 inches with a minimum of 4inches of graded aggregated base on solid subgrade. I prefer 6inches of G.A.B. but according to spec 4 will work. This will be using asphaltic concrete paving material with  9.5mm aggregate or an"F" type topping. On most DOT work a 12.5mm material is used but in my experience the heavier topping is prone to segragation and doesnt seal water out as well which causes problems and shortens the life of the material. medium duty-1.5 inches of 9.5mm topping,bituminous tack coat,(acts as a binder or adhesive),minimum 2inches of 15mm or "B"binder asphaltic concrete paving,on 6inches of GAB(some call G.A.B.crusher run but its far from a crusher run of stone.). Heavy duty will include the prior with the addition of 3inches of 19.5mm "black base" asphaltic concrete paving and a total of 6 to 8 inches of G.A.B.
This reference is for new construction or new additions. I will talk about overlaying existing asphalt more later and cover some cementous concrete guidelines in my next post.

1 comment:

  1. Fantastic, what a blog this is! This blog actually offers the positive information to us, carry on guys!! GTA Paving Experts

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