Street reconstruction completed... again

Yesterday morning the street crew arrived at 7:01 am to make the final preparations for re-paving the street. They were done by 11:30.

Just to refresh your memory, they started this project by completely removing the pavement on March 12. We had no street for 2 1/2 months, until May 28. In mid-June the neighbors convinced the inspector that the inverted crown had not been implemented correctly, so on June 25 they ripped off the top coat of pavement and left it that way for another 2 1/2 weeks, until yesterday.

So, it took 4 months to reconstruct a street that's probably not even 100 yards long. Obviously there were many, many days when NOTHING was going on here.

I am thrilled that its finally over. I am also thrilled that the guys building our addition do not work for the company responsible for reconstructing the street.

Crush du Jour: Austin Peck

Street reconstruction... AGAIN

You may recall in this post I mentioned the street reconstruction project (which took 3 months to complete) was not done correctly and that part of it would have to be redone. The top coat of asphalt was supposed to have an 'inverted crown' (higher on both sides, lower in the center) that would direct rain water to the center of the street and into the new storm drains. The 'inverted crown' works great on a nearby street, and it was pretty obvious that it had not been implemented correctly on our street. Rain water is puddling in places and running off the street into neighbors' yards in others.

My neighbor told me on Tues that the street crew would be out today to scrape off the top layer of asphalt "in the affected area", which I understood to be where the puddle forms and where the water runs off into people's yards, which is not directly in front of our house. However, today the crew showed up at 7:30 am and proceeded to take off the top layer of asphalt from the entire street.

I guess they decided that they would re-do the top layer on the entire street since the 'inverted crown' had not been implemented correctly. So the street is a mess, again. Hopefully they will lay the top layer and implement the 'inverted crown' tomorrow (Fri) so we don't have to go all weekend with the street being jacked-up.

Sigh.

In related news, in this post I mentioned that our dyed, stamped concrete driveway and sidewalk were both damaged by the pipe crew that installed the storm drains and related drainage pipes. In case you're not familiar with dyed, stamped concrete, this is what ours looks like. It comes in lots of patterns (stone patterns, slate patterns, other brick patterns, etc.) and can be dyed about any color you want. We did not choose this color or pattern; it was selected by the builder and was already here when we bought the house.

The foreman of the street crew promised to 'make it right' and has been trying ever since to find the stamp pattern to match what we have. To assist in this, I contacted the house builder and got the name and phone number of the concrete company that installed the driveway and sidewalk. Turns out the owner of the company retired and sold all his equipment to various people/companies and has no record of who bought the stamp used for our driveway and sidewalk. The foreman said he's tried everything, from calling all the local concrete contractors to Googling concrete stamp patterns on the internet, but could not locate the stamp to match.

Not only was the pattern needed to replace the damaged sections of the existing driveway and sidewalk, but our builder was going to need that stamp for the new driveway in front of the garage addition. Yeeeaaahhhh. That presents a bit of a problem. Plus, the color has faded a little from the sun so the foreman said there would be no possible way to match the color exactly.

So this is what I suggested to Spouse, the street foreman, and our addition builder: the entire driveway and side will be removed (not just the damaged areas) and replaced with regular old non-dyed, non-stamped concrete, at the street foreman's cost. The builder would then create the new driveway in front of the garage using regular old concrete so that it all matches. Everyone agreed this was the best approach.

Although the regular concrete does not have the 'custom' look of the dyed, stamped concrete, it will be much easier to repair or replace in the future if something happens to it. We could have chosen a different pattern and color, but I don't really care so much about it as long as it all matches. Plus, our builder said that going with the regular concrete for the new driveway in front of the garage will save us over $2,000. YES!!! And, if we wind up not liking the plain old concrete, it is very inexpensive to spray on a concrete stain.

So it appears 2009 will be our 'year of construction'; from the street project, to the addition, to the driveway and sidewalk replacement.


Crush du Jour: Luke Guldan