Sma tarmac - Newly laid.. are tyre marks the norm?

[bopeep]

Evening all. After a few problems on the turning area of our new tarmac drive our contractor has laid SMA on the entire drive. Finished yesterday shortly before 3pm. We didn't drive on it until today at around 3.00pm. He had said we could park on last night but we decided not to take any chances.

Any way, I have driven on today , 3 ish driven up the side of the house, reversed onto turning space, manouvred car around to reverse up side of house ( we live busy A route.. trust me.. this is easier!) Any way... the car has left tyre marks where I have turned around mainly, a little where driven straight. Hubby says theres a topping on SMA and thinks it could be this that is causeing the marks. The Tarmac is not lifted.. its where he put it but just wondered what you all think.. A OK.. or get the man back again???

[irishpaving]

Have the contractors been told of the situation

[DNgroundworks]

Dave L is the man for this question.

[bopeep]

Yes.. He says the tarmac will react in the heat , 24 on my car today.

[loudog]

Tarmac def reacts to heat, the lab people at my quarry tel me tarmac can take upto 18 months to fully harden, I had to go back the other day as a drive i done about 8 months ago came back to life in this recent hot weather. So i put some water on it first and proceeded to roll it back in and the steam that came off it was incredible, It was like it was freshly made.

[rab1]

bitchumastic products hold heat and as loudog experienced and will soften unless fully cured. (had to learn this in collage along with the molecular changes in steel/alloys due to heat) :p

[colordrives]

Should be leaving cars of it for longer than 24 hours in this hot weather.

[Dave_L]

Yes - I'm afraid this is a problem in this very hot weather on newly laid bitmac surfaces.

All you can do is take great care of it, keeping any movement of the steering wheel to an absolute minimum and trying to stay straight on the drive as much as possible.

[Big Phil]

nice to see contractors using sma on drives

[bobbi o]

nice to see contractors using sma on drives

Its designed for high traffic commercial applications, i cant see how a homeowner is going to benefit from that.

i recommend to domestic customers-6mm dense bitmac wearing course or 15/10 asphalt with a red pre coated chipping if they want something decorative.

[lutonlagerlout]

being pretty ignorant on tarmac stuff (my only experience was for big gerry 20 years ago)
i have some questions
why cant i have the same stuff they use on roads on my drive?
what is sma?
what is 15/10 asphalt?
cheers LLL ???

[msh paving]

SMA is stone mastic asphalt,
if you pay you can have what you like on your driveway.....lol
15/10 i think is stone size no 100% on that

MSH

[bobbi o]

Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) is a bitumen enriched material,usually with a specially designed grade of bitumen and with added fibres.its been in fashion europe wide and with some local authoritys in the uk for many years now.It tends to be made of a single size high psv aggregate usually 10 or 14mm.there are no aggregate fines in the material,hence the extra bitumen content and added cost.

Hot Rolled Asphalt (HRA) is a mix of finely graded sand,bitumen,lime and a 10 or 14mm aggregate added in 15 or 30% stone content to the mix,with usually a bitumen coated chip rolled into the surface.

Dense Bitumen Macadam is 6/10 or 20mm aggregate with bitumen and fines.

[bopeep]

Our drive has a tight turning area in the front that the standard drive stuff was not enough. Our contractor was brill. The tarmac was not right either so he gave SMA top at no extra cost and now all.. touch wood.. is as it should be.had we known of the 'upgrade' we'd have happily paid more for SMA from the off.

[Dave_L]

I'd say that 50% of our domestic driveway resurfacing work is surfaced with SMA. It's pretty evil stuff to lay, but very durable.