Driveway Paving and Room Addition Contractors?

[mkjeeves]

I'm caught up in the city effort to extort money from the citizens, I mean crack down on people with gravel driveways. Anyone have a recommendation for a licensed paving contractor that does residential driveways?

How about room additions? Since it looks like I might be pouring concrete, I might just go ahead and enlarge my garage while I'm at it.

[ctchandler]

Not to minimize your problem, but at one time, there was a home in Nichols Hills that had a gravel driveway. Granted, it's not OKC, but it's a beautiful home that was completely rebuilt on Wilshire very near the West boundary of the town. I haven't been through that area recently, so it might have changed.
C. T.

[mkjeeves]

You're rubbing salt in my wounds!

[catch22]

Have you considered asphalt? It would be cheaper than concrete (I am assuming you have a flat driveway). If it is an angled driveway I would stick with concrete.

[BBatesokc]

That's a shame. We have some $400K+ homes in my Edmond neighborhood with gravel driveways. They keep them groomed and remove any gravel that floods into the streets. Hasn't been an issue. I prefer a solid surface driveway myself, but their's look fine since they are maintained. Reminds me, I need to patch, fill and top coat my two driveways this Spring.

[mkjeeves]

Yep. OKC is stupid. There is no allowance for new gravel drives on homes even though storm water runoff is an issue and permeable driveways, like gravel, are an answer to part of that. This one is 60 years old, well kept, but does not meet the tight and ridiculous spec for grandfathering and continuing to use it legally. (Must be pre Oct 1 '88, perpendicular to property lines, less than 12' width and rectangular in shape. Mine is most of those, but not all.)

The lot is just under an acre. My driveway is about 100' long with two approaches. The approaches are 20' long. They have to be 6" thick concrete. The rest could be asphalt. From what I understand asphalt might be 20% or so cheaper but probably will need top coating, repairs or maintenance in 12-15 years. It looks like maybe $15K pave it all from what I read on the internet but I could shorten it up, put in a small drive for less. I don't really want to do that.

I'm going to retire at some point and would like more room for projects I currently work on at my work place. The large two car garage sits back from the house where the front of the garage is even with the back of the house. If I'm going to pave all the way from the garage another 80 feet or so to the street, I might make part of that concrete building slab instead of driveway and build more garage on it. I don't really want to do either but may end up forced into something. Third option is to pour driveway up to where I might add on to the garage, and leave the room in front of the garage to add on to it in the future. I'd like to talk to a room addition contractor to get an idea of cost for the big project, all drives and an add on.

Have you considered asphalt? It would be cheaper than concrete (I am assuming you have a flat driveway). If it is an angled driveway I would stick with concrete.

It's pretty flat but the lot has a slight slope to it, the drive is the low point on this part of the acre, and excess water that does not absorb into the yards or drive runs over the top of it and out into the street. It's going to take some expertise to not cause drainage and washout problems when I pave it.

[warreng88]

Jose Lopez with Today's Landscape. 405-919-4424. He did our driveway and gate and did a great job.

[mkjeeves]

Thanks!

[Bullbear]

Jose Lopez with Today's Landscape. 405-919-4424. He did our driveway and gate and did a great job.

yours looks great.. did he do the others down your way as well? I need mine done and was curious what he charged as it seems he did several down there.

[Zuplar]

What's the worst the city can do for not complying with this stupid law? I know lots of people out by me with gravel drives. They just charge a $200 fine and then move on down the road? Someone in my neighborhood built a shop to the side of their house instead of behind it. Really dumb cause it looks fine, but it was already built they can't make him tear it down. He paid a $500 fine, gave the city the finger and went on his business.

[mkjeeves]

What's the worst the city can do for not complying with this stupid law? I know lots of people out by me with gravel drives. They just charge a $200 fine and then move on down the road? Someone in my neighborhood built a shop to the side of their house instead of behind it. Really dumb cause it looks fine, but it was already built they can't make him tear it down. He paid a $500 fine, gave the city the finger and went on his business.

I don't know what the worst thing they can do...but they can write a $100 ticket for each car parked in the drive every time they drive by. In my case, that's frequently two, sometime three or more. I talked to a man at the court house who was written multiple times for multiple cars. So far, I have one ticket. Waiting to see when/if the next one comes before I do anything drastic. We have thought about paving and adding on over the years though and this could be a resale issue, whenever that time comes. It's just money money money.

About every third house in my immediate area has similar issue, including on each side of me. So far, I'm the only one I've found who got ticketed in my hood. But there was a news story a month ago when this happened where they blanketed the NW side of town. Spotty blanket I guess.

[Zuplar]

How the hell can they ticket you for parking in your driveway? Where are you supposed to park.

[Bullbear]

How the hell can they ticket you for parking in your driveway? Where are you supposed to park.

They ticket each vehicle for being parked on an unpaved surface. the same as if you parked in your yard or popped the tire of your vehicle up on the curb.

[mkjeeves]

Yep. They can ticket my housekeeper, visitors, delivery people, plumber and whoever else parks in my driveway. It's a total sham and money grab. Not much different than ticketing every person who walks into a building that has a code issue that changed over time, like not handicap accessible, or a million other things.

[Zuplar]

They ticket each vehicle for being parked on an unpaved surface. the same as if you parked in your yard or popped the tire of your vehicle up on the curb.

lol wtf. Is the city hurting for money? I mean I have a gravel pad in my back yard that has trailers parked on it. I did it so it was easy to maintain and looked better than being parked in the grass, even though that's what pretty much everyone does. I've never heard the term unpaved, I've always heard unimproved, although I may be thinking of covenants from HOA.

I mean if they are going to be that petty, can I sue them for the gravel roads out near my house that they maintain? I mean come on OKC.

[mkjeeves]

The city owned street my illegal driveway connects to is a real piece of work.

[Zuplar]

The city owned street my illegal driveway connects to is a real piece of work.

Seems like that's the case with most city streets. I have some friends that live a mile from me live down a city owned gravel road and have gravel driveways off that road, I'd sure like to see the city tell them they can't have a gravel driveway.

Like others have said a nice maintained gravel driveway is no problem IMO. The city thinking otherwise is completely asinine.

[rezman]

Have you looked into chip seal? When completed and done right, it's just like asphalt.

Another cool product I saw demonstrated at World of Concrete a couple years ago is permeable concrete. It's poured in forms and troweled out just like regular concrete, but is made up of millions of small pieces of aggregate bonded together with Portland cement and other ingredients. It sets up hard the same as regular concrete, but allows drainage right through it. Very cool product. Looks cool too when completed.

[Zuplar]

Have you looked into chip seal? When completed and done right, it's just like asphalt.

Another cool product I saw demonstrated at World of Concrete a couple years ago is permeable concrete. It's poured in forms and troweled out just like regular concrete, but is made up of millions of small pieces of aggregate bonded together with Portland cement and other ingredients. It sets up hard the same as regular concrete, but allows drainage right through it. Very cool product. Looks cool too when completed.

I had to google it cause I was curious, it does look cool, like really nice pea gravel that doesn't have to be maintained. Thanks for sharing.

[rezman]

And, like regular crete, you can tint it just about any color you want.

[mkjeeves]

And, like regular crete, you can tint it just about any color you want.

Interesting. I had not heard of it before.

[TheTravellers]

Yep. They can ticket my housekeeper, visitors, delivery people, plumber and whoever else parks in my driveway. It's a total sham and money grab. Not much different than ticketing every person who walks into a building that has a code issue that changed over time, like not handicap accessible, or a million other things.

Could you build a gate that can't be seen through or over from the street instead and would that "fix" the problem? Not sure how much effort the city would go to in order to ticket cars if they had to climb over a gate to do it, and also not sure if the gate would have to conform to crazy specs from the city or cost as much or more as the repaving. Might also be a hassle to have to use a gate each time someone goes in or out.

[mkjeeves]

I would have to fence most of the place. It would be less expensive to pave the driveway.

[TheTravellers]

I would have to fence most of the place. It would be less expensive to pave the driveway.

Ah, yeah, for some reason I thought there was already a fence up.

[Zuplar]

So for the fun of it this morning I decided to count the number of gravel driveways on my way to work. According to google I live 6.3 miles using the route I drive from work to my house. Within that mileage, only counting driveways that touch the roads I'm on I counted 28 gravel driveways all withing OKC. This is only one direction from my house, I imagine if I went any other direction I'd get similar results. Just fascinating how many there are.