Driveway Dilemma

[Ronstar]

I have a dilemma. Our house and driveway are 31 years old. Before I built the house, our driveway was a mowed path through the woods. After I built the house, I had the driveway paved in the same place as the mowed path.

But in 31 years things have changed. Mainly trees have grown. Healthy oaks on the left side of the pic, with pavement buckles due to tree roots/ tree growth. Cottonwoods on the right that have now some disease/ rot.

I was thinking earlier this year to repave the driveway - just add a couple of inches of asphalt to the existing driveway. (about $23k)

But if I do that, the pavement buckles/etc next to the oaks on the left will continue. I've now ruled this out as an option.

So I'm thinking about moving the drive to the right about 3-4' to give driveway clearance from the oaks. This will require about 6-8 nasty cottonwood trees to be removed, existing pavement removal, lots of regrading, new stone driveway base, and new asphalt. All in this will probably cost about $50k. Underground gas, electric, and telephone services are under the existing driveway, but I don't think these would be affected by tree removal/ driveway relocation.

We have been thinking about moving from this house when we no longer have MIL to care for. She's 95 and DW will not move while her mom is still alive. Her mom has mild dementia, but otherwise in good physical health and lives in her apartment 12 miles from our house. Our thought of moving is why I've been putting this fix off for years. Just wondering if I should just fix it and get it over with or leave as is.

So I see 2 options.

1. Do the tree removal, regrading, and driveway relocation now.

2. Continue to do nothing and let the driveway continue to degrade from tree roots/ etc.

I'm not sure what affect a new driveway vs buckling old driveway would have on resale value.

DW is all in on moving the driveway.

Thoughts?

 

[38Chevy454]

New driveway will be nicer for potential buyers, but not increase the sale price much. It's a sale enhancer. Plus nicer for you until you sell.

I think it comes down to how long you plan to live there before selling. If 2 years or less you might get by as-is. Longer the personal benefit to you is probably worth it. That's my $.02 toward your driveway.

 

[ERD50]

^^^ agreed. We were at the point that a lot of big $$$ things were needed in our home, but we might not be there much longer. We sunk a lot of $ into it that were not worth it in terms of resale. But...

If we let it go longer, it just would have not been a good place to live for however long we were going to stay.

Since you do think you have a limited stay there, I'd do near the minimum that you need to enjoy your time there. You'll never hit the perfect point of resale value vs how much or how little you should do. Focus on what YOU (and DW) wants, vs resale value.

 

[skyking1]

It's most definitely not an ROI thing. If it makes the both of you happy do it.

 

[Plantman]

How about removing the offending oaks and injecting an herbicide into the remaining root systems so that they stop growing thereby saving the driveway from further buckling?

 

[calmloki]

Looks like a lovely idyllic lane to me.

31 years old? I wouldn't do anything - An oak isn't all that zoomy in root growth. If you absolutely gotta do something maybe shave the root tops down down with a Pulaski, add some bags of cold patch from Homer Depot and tamp it down with your car. Cottonwoods could stay or go depending on how desperate they are - stumps won't add to the attractiveness, nor stump ground dirt/chip humps. If you do get a tree crew in to remove them maybe you could get them to prep the oak roots for you to cover.

My vote is do as little as possible - restoration is tough after someone has "fixed" something. Often less is more.

 

[Ronstar]

Thanks everyone!! After digesting the above posts, maybe it's best to go the minimal route now. I'm going to kick the can down the road - it's almost too late in the year for new asphalt now anyway. I'll wait until next year and maybe our home plans will be more concrete to the point that the best fix for this will be evident then.

 

[Texas Proud]

Let me give another option.... have someone cut the offending oak tree roots down and then put in the asphalt on top... I had a section of my dive that was pushed up by two inches... had them break it out, cut the offending root down and pour a section flat with the rest of the drive...

The amount of root being cut will not affect the oak tree...

 

[Surewhitey]

I'd remove the background trees (smaller ones and be done. Leave it for the next person. Doesn't really look that bad to me.

 

[Lakedog]

Had a similar situation with my last house (long paved drive through woods) and decided to just do the minimum required to keep it usable rather than spend $30k. When I sold the house last year, the buyers never even mentioned the condition of the driveway.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

IMHO as long as the Cottonwoods are there you'll probably always have problems. the roots are very invasive and crawl long distances seeking water and can destroy septic systems. Would it be to expensive to have someone with a large truck wrap a chain around them and rip them out? Of course then you'll have a year of tree suckers popping up all over the place as they try desperately to regrow. I remember that awful year, it was like whack a mole but I finally won.

 

[Texas Proud]

Just a thought... not sure if it works for these trees...

DW planted bamboo that was not supposed to spread... well, it started to do so... and we had babies that kept coming up.... it is HARD to get rid of bamboo..

But, I read that you have some Roundup with you... you cut the baby growth and then paint the remaining stalk with the roundup.... it gets sucked into the roots and eventually kills them... it took awhile for us but we are bamboo free now...