Tarmac drive problems - Tarmac drive problems

[LGDT]

Hello all


I posted this back in August 2006 year after parts of our 7 month old tarmac driveway had started to scuff, bubble and break up during the hot weather.

Original Post

After advice received here and threats of the small claims court to the contractor he came back in October. He patched a couple of small thumb-size indentations that had appeared and re-rolled the drive – I believe using water and a heavy roller to flatten out the 2 or 3 other affected areas. I wasn’t there at the time so
I can’t say exactly what he did. However I accepted this as an attempt to remedy the problems but resolved to keep an eye on things over the winter.

Anyway as we have moved into spring and I can now see the drive in normal daylight I am concerned that the one area where the surface actually broke is getting
worse. There are a couple of photos below. These are as good as I can get them that but I think they show the problem. Here the scuffing caused by the heat - without us driving or walking on it I hasten to add – ended up with a patch that has crumbled slightly. It’s now very noticeable and I am able to regularly pick loose chippings out this patch.
Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Am I being over-picky here or should I get the contractor back again and request that he patch the affected area?

Advice would be appreciated

[Dave_L]

On pic 1 - can I see some tyre scuff marks? Circular marking?

[TarmacLady]

What say you, boys -- too much aggregate in the tarmac?

[bobbi o]

looks like an SMA. power steering on the spot ,without the vehicle moving causes these scuffing marks in hot weather on freshish tarmac. i would reheat and roll it,which should solve the problem.as the bitumen oxidises and becomes stronger,it probably wont occur next year.

[LGDT]

Thanks for the replies.

To reiterate. These marks are in a spot immediately in front of the garages which are not driven immediately over and were not subject to any power steering. They bubbled up during the hot weather last July (six months after the tarmac was laid) and have ended up looking like this.

bobbio suggests reheating and rolling. I suspect this was what was done last September and the problems remain.

Sorry to be a pain but the main thing I need to know is that if one of you guys/girls had laid this surface would you consider it reasonable for me to be asking you to come back and put it right?

[Dave_L]

It's very difficult to comment at a distance but pic 1 concerns me. If that was a power steering scuff, I would class that as abuse and exclude that from any form of remedial work on our behalf - but as you say there is no turning going on at this point, I'll take your word for it.

Are the car wheels parked (at rest) on this spot in question?

[LGDT]

The scuffs occured 7 months after the drive was laid. And as I keep stating they are on a direct line between the garage and the road so are not turned on. We do not park on the driveway other than whilst we are opening the garage doors. These patches are directly under the chassis of the car when parked - not tyres - anyway

I actually watched these patches form during the hot spell one Saturday afternoon last July when the cars were safely tucked away in their garages so I can categorically state that power steering was not the cause.

[TarmacLady]

the spots are under the chassis....

do you have any sort of drip or leak coming from under the car? Automotive fluids don't play nice with bitmac, and the combination of heat and chemical could create a right mess, as well.

Not accusing anything...just trying to tick all the items off the list.

[LGDT]

Tarmac Lady – thanks for your reply but I don’t think we are getting anywhere with this.

I only mentioned the position of the car’s chassis to give an idea of where the wheels are in relation to the affected area. The car is not parked outside ever. It is kept in the garage at all times and it certainly is not leaking.

Sorry to keep harping on but I will restate what I have already said.

From January 2006 (when it was laid) until July 2006 the surface was fine. During one hot weekend during July 2006, when the cars were parked in their garages all weekend, parts of the driveway bubbled and cracked. Of these areas the one pictured is now the worst. It has not had PAS cars manoeuvring over it. It has not had leaking cars parked over it - both cars stay on the drive only long enough for us to open the garage doors.

I watched the surface deteriorate over a period of 2 days and the scuffing and broken surface you now see is the result. The contractor has been back to make good a couple of small indentations that appeared in another area at the same time. But this area still gives cause for concern because the surface is broken and small chippings continue to break away.

I feel as though I’m going round in circles trying to explain this. We followed all instructions. We kept off the drive for 4 days after it was laid and the drive is large enough for us to back the cars straight out to the road and to drive them back in. We have a driveway that after just over 12 months looks scruffy and damaged.

Sorry if I am sounding frustrated. But I would really like to know, given the several explanations I have given, whether you guys would consider yourselves culpable for repairs if this was occurring on a drive you had laid.

[bobbi o]

have seen this "scuffing" before and as you've seen the first reaction is to presume its been caused by tyres turning on the spot. the only other possible cause i can think of, is that some tar has stuck to the drum of the roller in that small area,causing some imperfection in the compaction of the surface and an open textured finish, compared to the close textured finish of the rest of the surface.
i would say its reasonable to call the contractor back to repair this.(which is easy to do)if your still holding money ,i'm sure he'll be return,otherwise you'll probably have to argue the point.

[Dave_L]

Then, if there is no 'abuse' of the surface, then most reputable contractors would plane off and resurface the affected area.

I'm sure you know that you cannot do a repair that is going to blend into the existing - it will be a patch - which you might not like on your recently surfaced driveway.......

[Tony McC]

In answer to LGDT's key question regarding culpability, I would say no: I would not accept liability for these scuff marks. For me, they are typical wear and tear on a tarmac driveway.

I say this because most tarmac driveways are hand-laid, with a bitmac that has been doped with pen oil to aid laying. As this drive was laid in the winter, it's a certainty that the pen oil was added, and the fact that the scuffing occurred during the ghottest part of the year is further indication of surface softening.

Whether cars have PAS or not is irrelevant: they exert shearing forces onto the surface during even the simplest of manoeuvres and typical acceleration/deceleration. To be sure, if drivers take extreme care, it is possible to minimise (but NOT eliminate) shearing forces, but we live in the real world and, as the sage said, shit happens.

So: the client might argue that the contractor should have provided a surfacing material that could cope with these forces and everyday wear and tear, but the real situation is that...

a) hand-laid macadam needs to be 'cut-back' if it is to be successfully laid to small driveways in the middle of winter

b) to use a super-heated, cut-back free material would probably double to cost of the material, and add a tenner a square metrre or more to the price

c) bitmac is, like it or not, a cheaper option to surfacing such as flags, blocks, setts, etc. If a scuff-free and scuff-proof surface was required, then this should have been stated by the client and then the contractor could havce made it clear that bitmac was not the most suitable option.

If LGDT was a client of mine, I would be saying that I'm not prepared to accept liability because the scuffing is relatively slight, and it will blend in with the rest of the surface over time. The bitmac was laid at the client's behest, despite being advised that it is prone to just this sort of thing (as we always did in our quotes for bitmac surfaced driveways), and an aesthetic repair has already been undertaken as a gesture of goodwill.

Hard?? Maybe, but no surface will ever remain in pristine condition throughout its service life, and clients that expect a driveway, patio or even a car park to be unaffected by everyday events is living on a different plant to me.

[Dave_L]

the only other possible cause i can think of, is that some tar has stuck to the drum of the roller in that small area,causing some imperfection in the compaction of the surface and an open textured finish, compared to the close textured finish of the rest of the surface.
i would s

Or perhaps some diesel spilt from a badly positioned bucket?

Our diesel bucket* is my best friend - it always seems to get in my way when I'm rolling!


* For those who don't understand, diesel is used to stop the tar (esp SMA) from sticking to hand rammers, whompers, tarmac rakes/spazzles and your boots.