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Rick Blaine Rick Blaine is offline
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Default Concrete Driveways

john wrote:

They always say that there are two type of concrete. Concrete that is
about to break or concrete that is broken.
I will have to put in new driveway next year. My brother had 6 in
fiberglass reinforced over rebar poured two years ago. It has a couple
of breaks already.
There is always new stuff coming out. What's the newest and best
concrete to technology? I don't want to do this more than once if I can.


Find a contractor who knows how to spec and install concrete. The primary factor
in concrete strength is it's PSI rating. Older contractors also refer to this as
the "bag count" after the number of bags used in a hand mix.

Almost as important is the quality of the agregate used. Both of these are under
the contractor's control. The concrete plant just mixes to spec. Rebar as
appropriate for the span.

It needs to be installed over the correct base - material and compaction, and
weather needs to be taken into account.

Finially, you need to spec strength based on what you plan on driving over it. I
had to jackhammer out a patio once that was built to near Interstate Highway
specs. It wasn't fun - or necessary.

Properly installed, your driveway *won't* crack anywhere that it isn't supposed
to. You can always pay for an independent strength test during install.