It almost seems like a mythical thing, the driveway.  Something rumored but never seen.

We’ve been living without a driveway, or ability to park off street, since we moved in back in August.  In fact, we haven’t had a garage to park our cars in since early 2013, almost six years.  Now, we are getting really close to having a driveway, and at last, a functional garage.

The driveway process started with proper grading.  Looking from the finished product, we have 18 or so inches of materials that makes up our permeable paver driveway.

So, the first step was to determine the driveway level and then work backwards to excavate down to get the required 18″ of sub-grade.  Then, we had to further over-excavate 12″ of soil beneath that and repack it at less than maximum compaction, to insure that water could get down into the soil.

Here is the driveway after grading.

Once graded, we determined the exact height of the driveway at the places curbing would have to be installed.  The curbs hold the permeable paver system together.  On the left in the picture above is a retaining wall, which serves that purpose. On the right, is the foundation of the house.  In other places, we needed curbs.

We did this using a transom, stakes and strings, measuring the fall we had over the entire distance, and dividing it up for each section.

Finally, the curbing was formed up and prepared for a pour.

 

The section leading up to our garage proved somewhat of a chalenge.  Our garage is 6 inches higher than our main floor level due the the structural requirements of putting a garage slab over part of our basement.  The level is 12 inches above the main part of the driveway.  To allow us to ramp down to the driveway, we poured curbs on either side to separate that part from the other lower parts of the driveway, or the siding of the house.

Finally, the end result of the curbs.

With the curbing in, we did the final grade adjustment, and brought in the first two course of base rock.

Here is what it looks like now, nicely graded and thoroughly vibrated into place.

This all happened within the course of several large storms.  The curbing pour happened a day after a major rainstorm.

What comes next is two inches of “pea” gravel, and the pavers, which starts tomorrow.  By the end of the week, we may have a functional garage!