Poll: Do you have a paved driveway?

[Alan]

Bricks in a fishbone pattern, quite steep at the bottom but level at the top.

 

[DrRoy]

1/2 gravel when I was a kid. Paved since then. Concrete now.

 

[Music Lover]

Gravel...120 feet long and ranges from 20 to 60 feet wide.

 

[Music Lover]

It's a pia to snowblow on gravel

Drive over the first few inches of snow to pack it down to create a "base" of hard packed snow. Then you can safely blow snow subsequent snow falls without launching gravel all over the place.

 

[Happyras]

Pave a driveway? Seriously, I tried to pave our 1200 foot gravel drive and 700 foot circular drive at the house. However, I learned that in King Co. you do not own your property, only pay hefty taxes on it for the benefit of Seattle apartment dwellers. An "impervious" surface is nearly impossible to get permitted here due to % surface to total area restrictions. I only wish I had more control over my 7 acres here.

 

[imoldernu]

As a kid in the 30's and 40's, our driveway consisted of coal ashes from the old furnace. Dumped out there as they were removed from under the "shaker"... often while they were still hot.

Anyone here remember "clinkers"?

 

[pb4uski]

Pave a driveway? Seriously, I tried to pave our 1200 foot gravel drive and 700 foot circular drive at the house. However, I learned that in King Co. you do not own your property, only pay hefty taxes on it for the benefit of Seattle apartment dwellers. An "impervious" surface is nearly impossible to get permitted here due to % surface to total area restrictions. I only wish I had more control over my 7 acres here.

Wouldn't both gravel and pavement be impervious surfaces?

They would be where I live... if you had a gravel driveway you could pave it since both are impervious surfaces... IOW, rainwater runs off both and does not get absorbed.

We have restrictions on creating new impervious surfaces (for example, replacing grass, field or forrest with gravel, staymat or pavement) but replacing one pervious surface with another is not a problem.

 

[rodi]

Pave a driveway? Seriously, I tried to pave our 1200 foot gravel drive and 700 foot circular drive at the house. However, I learned that in King Co. you do not own your property, only pay hefty taxes on it for the benefit of Seattle apartment dwellers. An "impervious" surface is nearly impossible to get permitted here due to % surface to total area restrictions. I only wish I had more control over my 7 acres here.

Pavers are considered pervious because the rain can seep in between the paver bricks. We also have a section of the walkway to our granny flat that is considered pervious... Pictures attached. You'll notice there's no runoff on these surfaces... it has to rain hard for the rain to runoff... unlike our neighbor's concrete driveways.

 

[mickeyd]

When I was growing up in FL (50's) our house had a driveway that was "paved" with oyster shells.

 

[NW-Bound]

In the area of my boondocks home, cinder (broken volcanic rock) is the de rigueur paving material. Just spread it out all over the driveway, the parking area, walking space around the home, and that's that. It prevents tracking dirt into the home.

Landscaping is all natural, as people only knock down enough evergreen trees (pine and juniper) to build their home. Can't grow much else because the critters like deer and elk come and eat it all.

It cannot get lower maintenance than that.

 

[MRG]

As a kid in the 30's and 40's, our driveway consisted of coal ashes from the old furnace. Dumped out there as they were removed from under the "shaker"... often while they were still hot.

Anyone here remember "clinkers"?

I do. I never lived with coal but remember it at family homes.

My parents left a coal mining area and I think they were proud of not using coal to heat. As if it carried status for them, they were never hung up on things like status, so likely pride of making a better life. Their generation was driven to not work in the mines, so it makes sense to me.

 

[ejman]

One quarter of a mile of beautiful 3/4 minus gravel from the house to the road. I actually prefer the stuff as we occasionally get snow/ice around here and the gravel gives a nice "bite" as we slide down the hill to the road. There is a small section (about 100 ft) that is actually paved and that turns into a skating surface when the cold/wet stuff piles on.

 

[38Chevy454]

Current house have about 400 ft of gravel driveway, leading up the hill from the street to house with a large landing area at the top. Needs to be regraveled approx every 5-7 years, which takes about 40 tons.

I am at 7100 ft elevation and can get some serious snow, typically get 2 snows 10-12 inches and many in the 3-6 inch range. I have a tractor for plowing the driveway when it gets above 6 inches. Less than 6 inches just drive on the snow and let solar melting help clear the driveway.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

960 ft2 of broken (poorly installed) concrete. Looking at replacing with (maybe classy) pavers this year.

 

[MRG]

This was ours yesterday morning. The foreground is the driveway under a foot of snow. The county road runs in the middle, at 90° to the driveway. The piles on both left and right are about 6' tall, with 4' ditches underneath them. We really don't know where the ditches are now, I am just driving through the middle.

The grader operator left about 30" in the front of the driveway.

I have to find the operator and what flavor of free beer they like the best.

 

[Hermit]

This was ours yesterday morning. The foreground is the driveway under a foot of snow. The county road runs in the middle, at 90° to the driveway. The piles on both left and right are about 6' tall, with 4' ditches underneath them. We really don't know where the ditches are now, I am just driving through the middle.

The grader operator left about 30" in the front of the driveway.

I have to find the operator and what flavor of free beer they like the best.

That solution works for me! I plow the roads here and my only pay is a beer or a cup of coffee now and then... (I ask folks who seriously want to pay me to please send a donation to the Kid's Camp.)

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

This was ours yesterday morning. The foreground is the driveway under a foot of snow. The county road runs in the middle, at 90° to the driveway. The piles on both left and right are about 6' tall, with 4' ditches underneath them. We really don't know where the ditches are now, I am just driving through the middle.

The grader operator left about 30" in the front of the driveway.

I have to find the operator and what flavor of free beer they like the best.

One of my neighbors clears his driveway with a blade on his ATV. He'd push the snow out into the town road for the town plows to clear, which is illegal. Apparently the town officials talked to the guy about it, but the message didn't sink in. So the next big snow the plow driver hemmed in his driveway with a 6-foot snowbank.

 

[gerntz]

The city home does, the boondocks home doesn't. So, I cannot vote.

Sure you can. Whichever you're at now is the answer.

 

[braumeister]

As a kid in the 30's and 40's, our driveway consisted of coal ashes from the old furnace. Dumped out there as they were removed from under the "shaker"... often while they were still hot.

Anyone here remember "clinkers"?

You mean what Santa used to leave in my stocking?

When I was little, I used to follow my father out to the coal bin behind the house in the morning. He got a bucket of coal and I got a few lumps in my little bucket. Then we would go back in the house and get the small coal stove going to provide a bit of heat in the house for the day. Hard to believe nowadays, but that was life back then.

Come to think of it, those lumps of coal were also used to make the face on my snowmen, just like you see in cartoons even today. What do modern kids use, since coal is no longer available to them?

 

[jollystomper]

200 foot paved with a turnaround. It was getting badly out of shape (crumbling, depressed where it met to street so that cars would bottom out going out) after 25 years. Had it repaved a few years ago by a small local company that actually gave us the highest estimate, but were so professional and honest and seemed to take so much pride in their work that we went with them. The first week after we had it redone the mail/package delivery carriers left notes on how great it was.

We have been impressed by the quality and and continuing attention showed by the company. The company owner has stopped by a few times just to check on it.

 

[W2R]

The small town/rural thread made me curious - if you have a driveway, is it paved*?

*Paved equals concrete, asphalt, chip-seal or other similar surface. Gravel, decomposed granite, shell, grass, dirt, etc. is unpaved.

So, REWahoo, is your driveway paved? Are you thinking of getting it paved?

I love having a paved driveway but then mine is short since I live in the city. It is maybe 90 feet long at most. It would probably cost a lot to pave one of those long driveways out in the countryside.

 

[REWahoo]

So, REWahoo, is your driveway paved? Are you thinking of getting it paved?

No, my driveway is 250+ feet of crushed limestone. Paved driveways are for city slickers...

 

[NW-Bound]

...Come to think of it, those lumps of coal were also used to make the face on my snowmen, just like you see in cartoons even today. What do modern kids use, since coal is no longer available to them?

I took my children up to snow country to play with snow when they were little. After making a snowman, they looked around for something to make his eyes.

The only things they could find were some deer droppings, and that was what they used.

 

[CardsFan]

One of my neighbors clears his driveway with a blade on his ATV. He'd push the snow out into the town road for the town plows to clear, which is illegal. Apparently the town officials talked to the guy about it, but the message didn't sink in. So the next big snow the plow driver hemmed in his driveway with a 6-foot snowbank.

Karma is a B*tch

 

[Jack_Pine]

Current house does, asphalt. Retirement home north we are building will have an asphalt apron around garage and then a 30' gravel drive....so both.