Concrete Driveways in Lafayette, IN

Concrete Driveways in Lafayette take daily traffic, the odd delivery truck and a whole season of brine. Street crews pretreat city roads with salt brine ahead of storms and begin salting once snow builds up, and every trip in and out carries a little of it onto the slab. Combine that with January lows that average about 18°F and a March that thaws and refreezes over and over, and a drive poured with the wrong mix or over a weak base starts showing it in a few winters. Most of what decides how long a new driveway lasts is done before the ready-mix truck arrives.

When a driveway is past saving

• Flaking: patches of the top layer peel off, usually worst where cars sit and drip slush.
• Cracks that spread, branch out or step up so one side sits higher.
• A dropped apron at the garage that sends water toward the door or freezes into a lip.
• Seasonal heave: panels that rise in winter and settle back in summer, a clue that wet soil sits underneath.
• Crumbling edges where tires roll off the side, typical of older drives poured thin.

Fine hairline cracks show up in almost every slab and mean little. Wide, offset cracks together with flaking across most of the surface mean the concrete itself is failing, and patching will not last.

Building it right

Thickness and stone base are settled first. HomeGuide's driveway guide calls for no less than 4 inches of concrete for everyday cars, 5 to 6 inches where RVs or heavy trucks run, and edges thickened to 6 to 8 inches. A layer of compacted gravel goes underneath. Around Lafayette, where many soils stay wet near the surface in spring, soft or muddy pockets get dug out and backfilled with stone rather than poured over, and the grade is set to send water to the street or lawn and never toward the house.

For the slab, we order an air-entrained mix meant for exterior work. Steel bars sit on chairs so they end up mid-depth, where they can hold any crack closed, and control joints are tooled or sawn at intervals that suit the thickness. The surface gets a broom texture running across the line of travel, which gives tires and boots something to grip on a slushy morning.

Widening and extra parking

Plenty of older houses near downtown Lafayette came with a narrow, one-car drive. Making it wider means pinning the new section to the old edge with dowels or separating the two with an isolation joint, matching the grade, and avoiding a new low spot where water would sit. Sometimes the original slab is worn enough that a full replacement costs only modestly more and looks far better; when that is the case, we price both so you can choose.

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The stretch by the street

The approach between the street and the sidewalk usually lies in the public right of way. West Lafayette's City Engineering Department issues a right-of-way permit for construction there, and work cannot start until it is in hand. Lafayette's Contractors Corner page says a permit is needed whenever soil is disturbed between the sidewalk and the street. Shadeland includes a driveway permit on its building permit checklist. Which of these touches your address gets confirmed early and built into the schedule.

The first months

Light foot traffic can usually go on after a day or two; vehicles should wait about a week. HomeGuide advises holding off on sealer until the slab has cured 28 to 30 days, then resealing every 2 to 3 years, and lists sealing at $1 to $3 a square foot. Keep salt off the drive its first winter and spread sand for grip instead. In later winters, clear snow before it packs into ice, go easy on deicers and turn downspouts so they drain away from the concrete.