Drive way crumbling!

Xcellor

The ice and snow started to melt and I've noticed that my drive way is crumbling. Its one of those look like paving stones. It's exposing the concrete base underneath.

The thickness of the top layer seem to be less than 1 cm. I have no idea who laid the drive way since it was a new house and of course the builder is no longe around... The house is only a few years old but it looks like this will need replacing...

Any experience with this type of drive way??

X

gsxr1

it could be due to the frost. water gets in to the stone. freezes , expands and pulls the stone apart. You see it alot where bricks have bee layed in solder style on walls . motar crumbles.

Martron

what i reckon is happening here is freeze thaw action.

the water from the snow is melting during the day. going ito little cracks in your drivway then freezing and expanding again at night thus cracking it further. i reckon if you treat you drive with salt it might minimise this.

as for the cronstruction of this drive . what i have seen beofre is that the concrete for the drive is poured then a concrete dye is dusted across the top and floated finishedthen a rubber mould is pushed on to the surface.

thats why you are only seeing 10mm but it is infact much deeper.

the driveway should be fine its just that the ice is damaging the "fat" cement/water/sand from the actual concrete.

when this cold snap is over you could seal your concrete driveway to prevent water ingress and damage

mato

we have a similar problem but with a concrete drive. put some salt on it last week and now the concrete on the drive is crumbling and the gravel in the concrete is showing through. I don't recommend salting your drive just in case.

Xcellor

Is it possible to get this repaired? Im going to be left with grey patches in the middle of a black coloured drive :S

cnocbui

Gives it a slate look, if you ask me, and doesn't look half bad. Maybe in real life it looks less appealing, but from that pic it looks almost like a contrived effect.