# Uneven driveway



## enigma-2 (Feb 11, 2014)

Well, last winter was the last straw. All the snowblowers I've owned have on common characteristic, they all find every crack in the driveway and get stuck on the uneven side (where one slab is a little more raised from frost heave that it's neighbor). You know how it goes, blow, blow, blow, thunk. Dead stop, fat gut runs into the handle, etc.

So I had the driveway leveled this summer. 

Interesting how the do it, first the experienced installer walks around and looks at the entire layout of the driveway. Then he marks "x"s where the holes are to be drilled. His assistant then follows behind and drills a 3/4" hole over each "x".

He then pulls a hose from the truck and put a nozzle contraption (picture a nozzle you put into your gas fill at your local gas station) into each hole and turns a small side lever to allow the concrete mix to flow under the slab. (His assistant is on the truck, mixing the motor mix and feeding it into the pump assembly). 

As it flows in, you can actually see the slab rise up slowly. He pumps it in until each side is level with it's neighbor. 

Some (back on the patio, which I also had done) areas took a lot more due to the extremely dry earth under it. And one slab he had to pump, and pump, and pump to get it to rise. After he got done he commented and I told him that that slab was actually 8". (He just looked at me and smiled). After they finished, his assistant walked around and put a plug of patching cement in each hold to seal it. You do see the color difference where the holes are filled, (whiter) but it's not a big deal. Probably will darken with age (after all the original driveway is over 40 years old).

About a week later had them come back and seal the cracks. They use product called NovaLink SL. (Sells for around $175 with ship on Amazon for a case of 12 - 28oz cartridges). 

He first cleaned out the cracks with air and scrapped out the weeds, then 1/2 filled each one with a fine sand to limit how much material they used. Then just hand pumped in the NovaLink and allowed it to self-level. 

So now my driveway and patio is perfectly level again, flush and all the cracks are filled with a semi-flexible searer. 

Wife seen it and said "looks great, so, here's your next project ....." 

Cost. Not cheap, but I had them do the entire patio and driveway, and seal all the cracks. Figure $300 small jobs, $1000-$1500 for large areas needing a lot of fix'ins. Every job is specific and you would need them to actually come out and give an estimate. I had my estimate around mid July and they got to me just after Sept first. Said they were booked bout 6-weeks out. All residential, hardly ever any commercial. 

Just thought I'd share. 

PS (I suppose I should have posted in a different forum, sorry, didn't think about it until just now, mods will move if so).


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## Normex (Feb 21, 2014)

Enigma I hope very much for you it will be the fix but I'm afraid the unevenness might return with a cold winter. You see the cracks and unevenness comes from water settling under the slab in the stone layer below which occurred for different reasons at the time of installation. Water dilates with freezing hence the heaves. Did they use the preferable 5/8" minus and compact it close to 100% before pouring? I doubt it 40 years ago. A remedy for this which might help is to install a weeping tile on each side preferably 2 ft deep to draw the water from under the slab. Now the weeping tile should be installed with a minimum slope of 1 1/4"/100ft and at the end you can dig a 3' by 3' hole at least 4' deep filled with 3/4" clear stone less 6" at surface so you can put a fabric sheet over the stone then putting top soil filling the rest with top soil. *Very important* to get locates of underground utilities before proceeding. So all in all you will see next spring if the concrete heaved and I hope very much for you it doesn't.
Lastly you can install armor skids on your snow blower if it hooks on cracks. Good Luck


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## enigma-2 (Feb 11, 2014)

Normex said:


> A remedy for this which might help is to install a weeping tile on each side preferably 2 ft deep to draw the water from under the slab.


Yup, got plenty of weeping holes all along the drive way. The chipmunks graciously put them in for me. (Big grin).

Took forty years to get this bad (well thirty more like it, it was bad for a while now) and I doubt it will go bad in the next ten or so. Leveling comes with a three year warranty.


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## Skydog (Nov 12, 2014)

I'm in Lowell, IN, will they come here?


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## enigma-2 (Feb 11, 2014)

Skydog said:


> I'm in Lowell, IN, will they come here?


Chipmunks. Sure, be happy to drive them myself. 


As for the contractor, I Google'd and found 30 contractors in Lowell that do it. Probably too late in the year now, but you could still get an estimate and schedule for early spring.

Lowell Concrete Leveling in Lowell, IN | DexKnows.com 

For those of you in the warmer areas, I'm in northern Indiana and currently it's 11° (-8° wind chill). Too cold to snow.


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## Skydog (Nov 12, 2014)

If you chipmunks are like mine, they'd find their way home. As far as the contractor, I was hoping to use the same one you did; I'm real tired of auditioning rookies


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