Concrete Driveway Help

That's problem #1. There should have been a joint in those 10x20 blocks. The driveway is mostly likely 4" thick. A single block of concrete should not be bigger than 10x10 @4" thickness.

That's concrete 101 shit there. The concrete crew that did that are simply not very good.

All the other points about subgrade, rebar, mesh, fiber-mesh, 3000 psi, etc....could be possibilites, but just by the picture, it is clearly the lack of a center joint.

 

I used to deal with warranty work for a production home builder....sounds like where you're at.

Our warranty stated the cracks had to be larger than 3/8" before we did anything. We put control joints into the concrete to try and get the cracks there but we can't control the cracking.

Regarding the wire mesh, 3000psi, rebar, fiber mesh, etc....yea, that's great and all when you are spec'ing a commercial job. A production homebuilder is putting in a 4" thick slab with little prep work for the cheapest than can get it.

Like Gapman said, your bigger issue is the size of the squares.

You should have gotten a warranty booklet with your home that will have a section on concrete. Read it and it'll tell you what they are required to do and not. Maybe you get lucky and it says something about the size of your squares.

Also, I would go look at your neighborhoods model home. See if that home has the same 10x20 squares. If so, you're SOL. If not, and it has the proper 10x10 squares, you may be able to argue with them into fixing but all they'll probably do at that point is saw cut some joints and not re-pour the drive.

 

All true about production builders....(not suggesting that the OP's home is one).

I've never put rebar, wire mesh, or fiber mesh in a production built home. Gravel for base? Sometimes. Usually it would be left over sand from the bricklayers. Soaker hoses around the foundation?....maybe 1 builder of 20 that i contracted for. I was never required to cure/seal a driveway either.

There was a production builder that i did work for in the late '90's. My area was having the 3rd largest housing boom in the country. This builder was closing 300 houses a year. Anyway, i was told to pour driveways on frozen ground, on top of snow and ice, mud, etc.....Their reasoning was, 'it's cheaper and or more importamt, to close on the house on time and before the end of the year. We''ll tear it out and replace it in the spring.'

So that's exactly what we did. On top of the $.65/sq ft for the initial pour, i got $3.25 sq ft to tearout and replace a few months later.

 

Good read, stuff I didn't know. I need a pad poured in front of our old workshop at the house. It's just a grass driveway now. Well, sand, because Florida.

 

I believe that we typically specify tooled control joints every 5' on-center (I quickly looked through our copy of ACI 318-14 and didn't find anything on recommended control joint spacing). As others have pointed out, concrete will crack as it cures and the there are many variables from the concrete specifications to curing methods and conditions that affect the characteristics of the cracks. Unfortunately the Q/A of concrete placement by home builders can vary greatly.

My biggest concern would any differences in elevation across the surface of the cracks (deflection).

+1 on the suggestion to check the warranty docs w/r/t concrete placement that came with your home. I purchased a new home within the past 3 years and I recall something in the warranty with respect to the width of the cracks in addition deflection across the surface of the cracks.

 

I will have to check the contract. I'm sure they have some clause in there protecting themselves. Its a production builder, and they are absolute dogshit. If the land we built on wasnt so good, we would have contemplated walking away, thats how bad the process was.

 

I’m friends with people that own a pretty large concrete company. I always go to who they recommend to lay the concrete. One of the owners just built a new lake house and was showing me all the “extra” stuff before the concrete was poured that as he stated “it’s sad that this is extra stuff because to make it last as long as possible it’s necessary”. There is also a bunch of stuff that can be added to concrete for different climates, usage, etc. Pretty involved stuff and as he said as well “good base and reinforcement can make up for lower grade concrete but even the best concrete (with all kind of expensive modifiers in it) won’t have a chance without proper base and reinforcement”. The pad I’m getting poured for the shop is a bit overkill as far as reinforcement plus some special grid stuff where the car lift will go. But for an extra $700 I’ll take the chance. I know gas tanks, he knows concrete so I’ll defer to the experts.

 

That's anything in building. Everything is important from the dirt up. You can't build a quality home that will last on a shit foundation. Cutting corners and fixing it later should not be the philosophy by which a builder executes the process. I got out the business for a reason.

 

To give some of you an idea, back in the day when I poured factory floors for GE, Dupont, GM, Ford and runways for UPS...this is what the inside of concrete looks like that you only see the top of. And typically it was plastic coated rebar sitting on the proper chairs. We had engineers inspecting the compaction of the base, the way the rebar was tied and the spacing, and cylinders broken from every load of concrete at the 7, 14 and 28 day marks. Nothing against the home builders that do this work, but it's like comparing a WERA mini's race to MotoGP.



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I'm also going to bet the words "put some water in it" were never heard unless a slump test indicated it was needed. Something that happens commonly in children of the corn housing.

 

Yep, you know how it works

We were pouring caissons at the then brand new Olin's Chemical Plant in Brandenburg, KY (now called Monument Chemical). These caissons were 4' diameter and 20+ feet deep. Right as the concrete trucks were rolling in the gate, the inspecting engineer walked up to our superintendent and said, "You aren't pouring that one. There's a nail in the bottom of it." One fucking 16 penny nail in the bottom of a huge caisson full of rebar. He held up the pouring until we got that one goddamn nail out of the bottom.

 

was he a new eng?? the 16d nail was visible?? Couldnt call it a "mini" crack bar?? lol

 

Yeah. He just dropped it down there.

 

Looking for a new job, mate?

 

I have no clue why Postimage adds some of that crap to their images. I miss good old Photobucket but I ain't paying.

Oh, and the engineer on the Olin's job was a crusty old fuck. But once we realized what we were dealing with, we got along fine and he came to respect us. And he chilled the F out after time.

 

Curious, Why "plastic" coated rebar wire? Doesn't that affect the concrete bonding with the wire?

 

Theory is it keeps the rust effects down

 

That makes sense, the grid pattern is probably more than adequate at locking the concrete to the steel.

 

We're doing a ton of Aldi , CVS , Walgreens , O'Reilly Auto , Dollar type stores …. all pretty much less then 10' saw cut pattern , all cut with Soff-Cut saw ( early entry is key ) . If I pour a driveway down here ( south florida ) , no more then 3500 psi mud ( blend or sidewinder mix , rock floats down here ). More psi = more brittle you want some flex. All these commercial jobs these day you won't pour anything less then 4,000 psi along with a metric ton of all kinds of fancy chemicals added . Just my .02 cents worth but its a penny for my thoughts.