Making driveway 2 feet wider...

[iiibdsiil]

My girlfriend bought a new contruction home. The driveway is 16 feet wide, the same as the garage door. This makes parking a real pain the the **** with two cars in the driveway. What we want to do is make the driveway 2 feet wider on one side, but we aren't sure how to do it, mainly because of building code and the home owners association. Because of those, we kinda can't do anything permant i.e. pouring a new slab.

So, we have two options.

1. The 12x12 walking pavers or whatever Home Depot sells. Her mom has some at their house that they have been parking on for 10 years or so, and only a few are cracking. Other problem with that is it is going to look like **** in my opinion. I think the car is going to move them, grass will always have to be killed to keep it looking good, and of course the cracking that may or may not happen.

2. Make our own concrete pavers, forming with a 2x4, putting them on a piece of tar paper, while they dry. We could even put in the grid stuff to help hold it together. We could make 2 foot by 2 foot by 3.5 inch pavers then, which I think would take one bag of concrete to make.

A bag of concrete ways what, 60 pounds? Does adding the water make it weigh more? Or does the water just make it wet so it can bond, and go into the ground/wherever.

Does anyone have another other opinions? We could do just gravel .

 

[bmwpower]

How about porous (environmental) pavers? These things are meant to drive on. Many different styles. This one doesn't look half bad.

 

[iiibdsiil]

That's actually not a bad idea. Maybe the home owners association won't have a heart attack with that.

 

[trovato]

Making your own pavers sounds like way too much work to me. There are lots of pavers designed to handle traffic loads. Check out www.unilock.com for ideas. Those pavers with the grass growing through would be ok if that's all you can get by the association. Otherwise, I'd go with a nice section of traditional pavers. Whenever I see those environmental ones, the grass seems to be really struggling to survive.

 

[rotus7]

If you plan on parking on the new section on a daily basis, I would not go with those environment pavers. The grass there will surely die. I parked my van beside my driveway, in the grass, for about a year. 3 years later the grass is still struggling and just looks terrible compared to the rest of the lawn. And that is with 3 years of treatments from a lawn care company.

Being that the section is only two foot wide, making pavers wouldn't talke all that long. I also wouldn't worry about welded wire mesh in such a small paver, but consider the fiber reinforced stuff. The pavers won't have to be that strong considering they will not be holding up the entire weight of a vehicle.

Compare the cost of having a contractor pour that section versus the diy methods suggested. And check with the HOA...you never know, they may approve the driveway extension.

 

[...dave]

And check with the HOA...you never know, they may approve the driveway extension.

They may also decide to jump down your throat over the pavers. Our HOA *spit* would. One should never assume that just because something makes sense it will match the law of the land.

...dave

 

[iiibdsiil]

Well, I get the wood for free, so to form everything out would be really simple. And it would be way more cost effective than having to pull a permit and lay the rebar and the grid stuff inside, then forming that up, and having the concrete guys come out. Plus, there is a setback on the property, and they house is already on the line as it is. Pretty sad considering there is about 8 feet to the neighbors wall. We could try to pour in on the inside of the driveway, but that might pass. We were thinking on the other side. Oh well, we'll figure somehing out.

I am going to have her call the HOA before we make any decisions. I doubt they are going to let us do anything though. That's why I figured the removable bricks, because I can't imagine they can stop me from that.

Thanks guys.