Outside Los Angeles on the southern California coast, the city of Oxnard is famous for its fresh produce. It's the largest city in a flourishing metro area that includes the cities of Thousand Oaks and Ventura. Oxnard lies in a fertile agricultural area near Port Hueneme and in the shadow of Los Padres National Forest. It is particular known for its strawberries, but is also a major producer of lima beans, sugar beets and other crops.
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By MichaelFeldman December 26, 2018
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Whether it’s just fading, cracks or potholes, a fresh clean driveway can make your property look better – and prevent car damage and falling injuries. It’s easy for a homeowner to not look at their driveway. It’s something a person drives over every day, it serves its function, and the way most driveways deteriorate – be it asphalt, concrete, pavers or gravel – pavement deterioration happens gradually over time. So it’s easy not to notice the problems. But there are trigger points where a repair or replacement of the driveway makes it a top-of-mind matter. Maybe it’s because a pothole formed in the asphalt pavement that is damaging to your car. Perhaps a crack in the concrete slab is a trip-and-fall hazard. Or maybe its time to sell the house and the driveway’s curb appeal is less-than appealing. To decide on what to do, an assessment of the existing pavement is in order. Discoloration of both asphalt and concrete can be addressed somewhat with washing and sealcoating. But structural issues – cracks, potholes and perhaps water pooling – are a sign that serious repairs or a replacement might be in order. Repairs come in many forms. Homeowners who live where winter and spring involve freeze-thaw cycles are most familiar with how cracks become potholes – and that filling in cracks can help prevent those potholes from ever happening. The trick is to catch the cracks in the earliest stages, before they grow big enough to permit water to enter the sub-pavement where it can freeze and expand. Crack sealants are best used on cracks that are a ½-inch wide or less. If the spider-web look of the crack seals is distracting to you (it is to home buyers), apply a topcoat of sealant across the entire driveway surface and probably a second coat 24 hours later. Concrete repair is a different story. Concrete really can’t be repaired in the same way. Sometimes a single slab might be replaced, but it will be a different shade of color. A professional resurfacing is considered middle ground in the repair-or-replace question. This is a reasonable aesthetic solution if the fundamental underlayment of pavement and ground around it are stable. Replacement is of course more expensive, but may be necessary because the deterioration is too great. It’s exceptionally difficult to repair cracked concrete, in part because the cracks may be due to tree roots, ground shifting or other factors that are hard to control. After a point, asphalt also can need complete replacement too if the cracks and potholes are too numerous. When a replacement is required, consider it an opportunity to rethink the entire driveway in light of newer material options and changing tastes. Gravel and its more stable equivalent, chipseal (small stones set in tar), are fine for a rustic look and where municipalities and homeowner associations allow it. Asphalt driveways can be colored to match parts of the home and garage; concrete can be poured into curvy paths and even stained to liven up the hardscape. Rethink also landscaping and lighting, both of which can turn dull pavement into a grand entrance. ...read more
By The Asphalt Jungle August 20, 2019
Atrophy is a way of life in road and driveway pavement, but preventive maintenance can slow the process considerably. Pavement is a lot like the cars that drive on it: From the first day onward, it depreciates. Not that pavement, asphalt to be specific, doesn’t enjoy a long life. A well-designed, well-built stretch of asphalt roadway can continue to perform for 35 or even more years. That is, if it is well maintained. It matters how experienced an asphalt paving company is that performs the initial asphalt construction as well as the maintenance. But to understand what constitutes a deteriorated pavement, which can happen even just a few years after the initial construction, it helps to understand the factors that break down pavement. An obvious culprit is traffic and the weight of the vehicles plying the roadways. The more and heavier the vehicles, the more that roads are damaged. Another is weather: too much hot weather can make the liquid parts of asphalt to become pliable; in extraordinary heat waves in Texas, the pavement sometimes experiences heat explosions as water trapped under pavement builds up into steam. A subset of weather is what happens when water can percolate down through pavement cracks. That moisture gets into the sub-pavement, which can either wash away supporting gravel or, when frozen, expand the cavity and allow in even more water. As that freezes and thaws again, the pavement above will collapse into a pothole. Ultraviolet rays from the sun also damage “blacktop” pavement. That sunlight leads to surface oxidation, which diminishes the oily resinous faction (bitumen) of the hydrocarbon chain. This increases the viscosity and decreases the ductility of the pavement, allowing the pressure of vehicles to pull it apart and make the surface a little more brittle. This is when cracks form on the surface – the fissures that allow the moisture in and below the surface of the road, parking lot or driveway. As with cars, regular maintenance can at least stave off the inevitable and extend the life of the pavement. The good news, according to the National Asphalt Pavement Association, is that lifecycle costs of hot-mix asphalt are “significantly lower than those of Portland cement concrete pavements.” The NAPA bases this analysis from the recommendations for maintenance prescribed by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. This is among the reasons why concrete highways are rare. One paving company breaks down the ideal life-cycle maintenance schedule into years. While the variables of traffic loads – how much and how heavy – and weather affect this, the rules of thumb are as follows: Years 0-5: Very little maintenance required. Years 5-7: Begin preventive steps such as sealcoating and crack sealing. Years 7-15: Make minor repairs along with ongoing maintenance. This may include patch repairs (tricky in winter climates; often a temporary repair is made and a permanent repair is made later in dryer, warmer months), crack seals and additional sealcoating. Years 15-25: Major repairs are usually made in this phase, which can include more sealcoating, asphalt overlays or at least extensive patch repairs. Years 25-35: In this phase rational decisions have to be made about continued repairs or complete replacement. Important to know about the latter stages: A sufficient number of external factors may have changed since the road or driveway was first constructed. That could include rerouting or new businesses requiring different traffic patterns, etc. These might be the ultimate determining factor in what happens. But suffice it to say that preventive maintenance in the earlier phases will keep the pavement intact far longer than if it were neglected. ...read more
By The Asphalt Jungle August 20, 2019
The rustic look of a gravel driveway finds a bit more resilient and stable form inthe chipseal construction method. There are several advantages. The gravel driveway look is popular in some circles, as it somewhat softens the landscape and connotes a rustic feeling that in some ways is more sophisticated than asphalt or concrete. While a true gravel driveway is relatively easy and typically less expensive to install – a version of “reverse chic” – an alternative is the slightly more expensive version known as a chipseal treatment. Chipseal driveways - as well as walkways - have steadily increased in popularity. What is chipseal? Essentially it is composed of small loose stones (the “chips”) that are applied over a hot liquid asphalt that is applied first over a (larger stone) gravel base. The top layer of stones might be selected for color, which provides landscape designers further creative range. This is a choice that departments of transportation as well as homeowners have for driveways, parking areas and roads. It’s more commonly used for long driveways and long country roads because chipseal paving because of its cost advantage, both to install and to maintain. Gravel is less expensive, pavers are far more expensive, but all have their pros and cons. Some of those factors vary by regional climatic conditions, however; for example, snow removal from a chipseal driveway or road is a little trickier than with hard pavement. To weigh the pros and cons of chipseal installation cost, durability and maintenance, consider the following: Cost of installation – This varies by market, but at the low end gravel is usually equivalent to or cheaper than chipseal, while other options (asphalt, concrete and pavers) can be four to ten times more expensive. But the cost of installation should be considered against the costs (amount and frequency) of maintenance over time; in this regard chipseal pavement is usually the winner. Durability – Two things can have the biggest negative impact on chipseal pavement: tire grinding and snowplows. Tire grinding is when a vehicle turns its front tires while standing in place, which is akin to drilling a hole. This might happen on tight turns – for example, where a driveway meets a road – or just from unnecessary bad driver habits. With snow removal, setting a blade high enough not to scrape the soft surface of the chipseal pavement is one preservation method but in driveway applications a manually operated snow blower or shoveling is preferred. This same set of problems exists with gravel, while asphalt, concrete and pavers are more resilient in these conditions. Maintenance – The great part of a chipseal driveway or road is that repairs are easy and inexpensive. Potholes form in asphalt, cracked concrete is a nightmare, pavers sometimes need replacements and gravel can erode from heavy precipitation. A final note: Some municipalities require permits when a chipseal driveway connects to a residential street. This has to do with making sure loose chips (stones) don’t trail into the street pavement. It’s generally a smart thing to also have a land survey done with any kind of driveway construction to ensure your pavement, of any type, does not encroach on a neighbor’s property. ...read more
By The Asphalt Jungle August 20, 2019