Expansion joints or not - Are expansion joints necessary

[lizb]

I am having a new home built and several days ago, they laid the driveway. They didn't use any expansion joints. Today, they took a big electric saw and cut about 1/2 inch down where the expansion joints would have been. Will this work or are they just trying to cover up a mistake?

[very simple simon]

Hmmm...probably not best practice, this is saw cut induced joint, normally seen on floor slabs for buildings. More common driveway construction is individually concreted bays with expansion joints between each bay. to be honest, I can't see any reason why you would cut external concrete, but then again, why not? I take it that it is brush finish as a driveway, and to my mind a saw cut in the middle of brushed concrete would not look as neat as a properly formed expansion joint between bays. ask them why they chose this method, or perhaps Tony will enlighten you (and me?)

[Tony McC]

Are we sure this is a concrete driveway? The OP has posted to the block paving section, and I wonder if the paving is a rigid block pavement?

Retro-cut joints in concrete is standard practice in the PIC trade. Given the traffic levels involved, I can't really construct a good argument against their use, but what annoys me is that very, very few are ever sealed after being cut. The contractors seem to think that allowing the cut to be filled with detritus and fag ends will do the job at a fraction of the cost of a poly-sealant.

[very simple simon]

Made me wonder...but then I read about bringing out the floor saw and I couldn't really see how it could be much else but concrete.

again, why rigid BP on a domestic drive? I've only seen it laid over tarmac for industrial estate roads or freight yards, would be very costly way of going about a bog standard driveway.

[Tony McC]

I think the OP is based in that strange country to the far left of Ireland, where rigid brick pavements are, apparently, quite popular.

[James.Q]

the concrete boys call this cutting a 'crack control joint' by claiming that if the driveway should crack it will follow the cuts they have made and not ruin the driveway.

[lutonlagerlout]

Op is in the good ole us of a,drives there are a lot bigger and pic ore concrete is very common,(in fact its all i have ever seen stateside) i have never seen a BP drive in the us
and yes it is a crack control joint
sounds about right, any pictures??
LLL