As Dale noted and also the advice of Cliff if he has the same is all good. My comments below Re-Dales again: "Concrete will crack unless it is designed with stress or slip joints in it. It is very rigid and brittle. You can fill it with rebar, fiber and what ever else but any subsidence in the ground and you will have a crack if it is any size at all.
Just covering the ground with a slab of concrete will keep water from getting to the soil below and the ground will shrink away allowing the concrete to subside and crack. I doubt ;you will have any satisfaction from the contractor but you could try. When a large expanse is poured the answer is to do it in blocks or to cut cracks into it after it has set up. At this point you might back cut the crack, clean the crack thoroughly then force expanding concrete into the crack. Once it has set you should then get a circular saw with a really good abrasive wheel in it and then cut fairly deep grooves at intervals the width of the driveway. You should probably also cut some lengthways too so that none of the surface is much over two feet without a relief crack cut into it. Up here we have a really big problem because including water in the soil, that water expands when frozen and concrete tends to walk all over the yard. Good compaction of well draining sand and gravel as a sub-base helps a lot but cement just cracks. Asphalt and tarmac tends to be a little more forgiving particularly if it is continuously rolled as happens on a road or highway. The very action of traffic, though it wears the surface also keeps it moving. This is why it persists in better condition on the road than on a parking lot or driveway. It too cracks on a driveway though. You could just fill the crack with a tar product to help keep grass and weed from growing up through it Otherwise, it is probably pull up the cement and begin again." I am guessing by Dale you are in the South. Up-here in the top Northeast, Portland, Maine. Dale's suggestion is used. The difference is in those that are long and a little wider than a car/truck/van.. Or the really wide driveways. They first dig completely out the area being done. I am not sure of the compact mixture they use. Yet this mixture is used for both Black-top and Concrete driveways. The difference is in the concrete driveways they put a good layer of sand. If I remember correctly with a friend of mine. It was 12 inches of sand. Sorry I can't remember the thickness. But the long and wide driveways they did as Dale suggested in reinforcement in it. The other was they did it in sections of blocks. I am guessing it too depends in what you have for ground there if clay, sand, gravel, or all good top-soil. My friend's driveway has been there for 4 years and other than a little discolor because of cars/vans etc there has been no issue. As, suggested it all depends on what your contract said in if you can get them to do anything. His driveway is 250 feet long and the width of two 250 pick up trucks. Good luck on getting it repaired. Gene/Geno sent out at 5:21 PM on September 2 from here. To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The New Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following Address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
