Operation Driveway – Pt 1 – Moving Some Dirt

Posted by blainegarrett on Aug 1st, 2008 | View Comments

When the flipper guy was remodeling the house he built a garage at the edge of the property, but no driveway leading to it from the paved easement leading into the property. I priced out some options and it wasn’t looking good. One estimate quoted me around $800 just to grade the portion of the yard where the driveway would be. This didn’t include additional fill if needed. This was merely labor. Once graded, it would cost around $2000 for a concrete slab or $1500 for blacktop or $900 for crushed limestone – none of which included labor. Yarg.

So I had to make some decisions. Firstly, I decided on using pavers for the driveway. In the long run they will not be as costly to replace like a concrete slab if they were to crack – I could just buy some more pavers. Secondly, I decided to have my dad bring his skid steer down and do the grading. I also decided to buy a mold and make my own paver bricks. The whole process will be pretty time consuming, but I think doing it myself will be more rewarding. Besides, I need the exercise and experience. I’ll probably eat my words at some point in the process.

However, step one began last week. Last Thursday, Jon did some digging about in the yard to get ride of the broken slate rocks strewn about. We also dug up some concreted chunks left over from the pouring of the foundation of the garage. After determining the ground was soft enough to move it around with the skidsteer, I had my dad come down on Sunday. With the the help of Jon, Adam, Toni, my Mom, and my Dad, we were able to get the driveway mostly graded within three hours and lots of Old Milwaukee. We had to bust out the tiller in some spots to tear up the hardened dirt, but most everything else was pretty easy to move around after that. Yay.

Next Step: Buy and lay some gravel.

Pictures below ( thanks to Jon and his Iphone )