“Why are you doing this now?” My husband, Dan, asks as the jackhammers jolt him out of bed. He looks out the window at the workers tearing up the driveway to replace it.
“Because now is when they would do it,” I say.
“We should wait.”
“We’ve waited three years!”
“Everyone knows you shouldn’t pour concrete when it’s cold.”
“Am I supposed to tell them to go home after all I went through to get them here?”
“You’re going to wish you’d waited when the concrete cracks.”
“Don’t you think the builder knows how to pour concrete?”
He looks at me as if I just answered my own question.
True, the builder got us into this mess. But finally, finally, he is fixing it, and this was not an easy victory. Winning required a strong cocktail of charm, whining, persistence and the occasional piece of logic delivered to the builder on an irregular but unrelenting basis like Chinese water torture.
We noticed the driveway tilted down toward the house shortly after we moved in three years ago. The first time it rained, water puddled against the house, and failed to run politely down the driveway like Girl Scouts after a cookie sale. The kids thought we’d done this for their benefit, and floated plastic toys on what we called “the moat.” Meanwhile, I learned this: Slopes going away from a house should drop at least one-eighth-inch every foot.
The builder agreed this was a problem, but didn’t agree he should fix it. He said the ground heaved, an act of God. I said the foundation sank, an act of men who didn’t compact the soil enough. He agreed to “wait and see.” If the problem persisted, he would fix it even if we were outside of the home’s warranty. I got it in writing. He bet I’d forget or lose the paper, or that the ground would move again in his favor.
Two years later, I approached him again. He said we were outside of warranty. I narrowed my eyes into viperlike slits. “I have it in writing,” I said, and pulled out the paper, which surprised him but not Dan. “You’re messing with the wrong woman,” my husband said to the guy sympathetically.
Soon after, 18 experts came over, huddled in the driveway, drew pictures of houses with arrows, filled a clipboard with notes and concluded that the driveway slanted the wrong way – something I could have determined with a level and some decent light, and the kids could prove with a marble. Ten months later, in the dead of winter, when builders get slow and address their nuisance stack, I got the call. A crew will be at my house tomorrow morning to jackhammer out the driveway.
Whaddyaknow?
As the men jackhammer, a well- meaning neighbor sends me an e-mail: “Not to tell you what to do, but you may want to wait for better weather to replace your driveway.” He includes a couple of Web links.
Great. Now my husband and neighbor are questioning my questionable wisdom. “I’ll take my chances,” I reply. “Given the choice, I’d rather have a cracked driveway than a soggy foundation. And I may never get these guys back.” I check the links. They elaborate on the dire outcomes of pouring concrete when average daily temperatures are in the 40s. Ours are below that. Outside I yell over the jackhammers to the builder, who’s as flexible as concrete. He says they mix “calcium” (as in makes strong bones) into the concrete to offset the cold factor. Umm-hmm. He says you can pour the concrete if the temperature is 32 and rising, but not 32 and falling. Umm-hmm. He says the crew will cover the driveway with insulating blankets, which sounds weird. He says his crews pour concrete year round with no problems. Umm-hmm. I report all this to Dan and my neighbor. They don’t buy it.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through marnijameson.com.
To pour or not to pour
I did some research to see who was right about my new driveway, the builder or “the boys.” Turns out I won’t know until July. I learned:
Concrete dries fast when it’s hot, slow when it’s cold. A fast dry is better because any water trapped inside concrete too long can cause problems.
Water in concrete rises as it dries. If freezing temperatures occur, the water can freeze, expand and crack the concrete.
Pouring concrete in cold weather is tricky but not impossible. Good installers can mess with the mix to create faster-drying materials, and can insulate it from the cold with blankets.
Don’t pour concrete on snowy or frozen ground. It may look nice at first, but come summer it will crack.
If you use blankets, cover outdoor concrete at night and remove blankets during the day, for several days. Leaving blankets on all day can leave white stains from calcium deposits.
If you plan to pour concrete in cold weather, ask your builder what precautions he’s taking to prevent cracking. Then take a leap of faith and trust that the professionals know what they’re doing.
If you buy a house in dry weather, bring a marble.
